I'm prepared, in good faith, to accept a solid answer for this question: given the fact that much of the Katrina damage was predicted days ago, why wasn't the National Guard ready and waiting in some safe place like Texas to sweep in to the Mississippi delta region immediately? Read Matri's plaintive request for troops and Slate's Today's Papers , noting that the LA Times wrote, "After a disheartening aerial tour of the flooded city, Blanco said she was able to reach White House officials on a satellite phone but could not connect with Army and other officials in nearby Baton Rouge." Eric Umansky bitterly mocks the media for its naive faith in authority, when its clear authority doesn't know what it's doing.
That's actually suggestive of a larger problem: The papers are playing up officials' assessments as if the authorities are as informed as usual—a kind of authority fetish. The problem is that officials aren't that informed; they can barely keep in touch with each other. As the LAT mentions in passing, Louisiana's governor couldn't get Army and other officials on the phone. The NYT seems to have a particularly strong faith in the oraclelike abilities of officialdom, announcing across the top on Page One: "BUSH SEES LONG RECOVERY FOR NEW ORLEANS." Does that tell us a damn thing?Why the hell not, that's what I'd like to know? What were they doing in the last week? What resources did they not have such that they could not respond faster? Either heads should roll or resources should be reallocated, but no response is not going to work.
Update: I see that Armchair Generalist talked about this yesterday, though it still doesn't quite answer my questions. Why are we limited to using the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guards? Why are they being slow? Why was DOD waiting to give permission? I still don't get it.
