Spreading Blame from Pillar to Post

[kg_veteran]

September 14, 2005
Spreading Blame from Pillar to Post
By Dennis Byrne

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Here's a way to save money come the next natural calamity: Abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency and give its job to the media, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other know-it-alls who accused Hurricane Katrina rescuers of incompetence, indifference or racism.

The "critics" obviously could have done it better, so the new emergency management czar would be Ted Koppel, the ABC News "Nightline" anchor. His questioning of FEMA director Michael Brown indicated that Koppel believed that any buffoon could have done a better job. Being any buffoon, Koppel is perfect.

Jackson would run relief logistics, because of his impressive ability to transport himself to any place on planet Earth where a camera is rolling. Newsweek contributing editor and talk-show mouth Eleanor Clift would single-handedly pilot a helicopter on rescue missions. Kicking on the automatic pilot, she'd lower herself in a harness to personally rescue thousands of rooftop survivors and fly them back to a rescue area, which she already had previously prepared with all necessary medical provisions, food, water and a big party. She can do this because she knows everything.

CNN's Anderson Cooper, who was praised for abandoning his professional role as a journalist to "advocate for the poor and dying" because he had seen a dead body, would get a special job befitting his concerns: body collector.

"CBS News Sunday Morning" contributor Nancy Giles would be put in charge of triage, deciding who is cared for first. She had said that if the hardest hit victims had been white, they wouldn't have gone for days without food and water, and they would have been "rescued and relocated a hell of a lot faster than this. Period." With Giles in charge, we could rest assured that no white person, no matter how serious her plight, would receive care before any black person.

There'd also be jobs for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and columnist Molly Ivins, who want to boot out Bush crony Brown because he mucked up his job. Durbin, and others of his mindset, would be mucking up their boots at the front, personally leading the tens of thousands of medical-aid workers, military troops, rescuers, truck drivers, logistics specialists and other key personnel that they had funded and staged at any (i.e. every) American city that is "at risk" of some natural catastrophe or man-made attack. No sweat. The planning already has been done by 1950s fantasizers who believed they could protect the populace from nuclear attack by stuffing Americans into air raid shelters sufficiently stocked with food, water, clothing and reruns of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

By the way, after his criticism of Brown, Durbin might advise his pal Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to stop appointing or giving contracts to cronies because look what happened when President Bush did it.

The critics also would be put in charge of international disasters, because it was generally the same folks who complained about Bush's "mishandling" of the tsunami relief. The Asia disaster happened so recently that it doesn't qualify as history, but so many already have forgotten the same sing-song crabbing: We're not moving fast enough; bodies everywhere, a "clumsy" relief response and "We're not doing enough!"

As I said back then: "What has happened to us that we are compelled to turn everything--even a historic human tragedy--into an opportunity to shove a stick in someone's eye. In my memory, I never have seen such generous, widespread and, yes, genuine compassion. Can't we simply marvel at its beauty and magnificence? Can't we just accept it for what it is--an outpouring of love? If we can't answer the `why' question, can't we just appreciate how the depth of the tragedy is matched by the heights of human generosity. ... Do we have to turn everything into a scoreboard?"

Now, just nine months later, we've descended into depraved finger-pointing and the most noxious race-baiting by bigots who believe that because Hurricane Katrina's victims were mostly poor and black, some people said, "Whoa, let's slow down the rescue."

It's not too far from saying: You've got to hand it to Bush, the sly fox. When things were going badly in Iraq, he manufactured a Katrina to take everyone's mind off the war. When things started to go badly with the Katrina relief, he diverted everyone's attention by getting Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist to die, as if on cue, to refocus attention on John Roberts' nomination to the court. When Roberts' chief justice hearings go bad, there's no telling what that lunatic Bush will do next.

[LRB]

As I said back then: "What has happened to us that we are compelled to turn everything--even a historic human tragedy--into an opportunity to shove a stick in someone's eye. In my memory, I never have seen such generous, widespread and, yes, genuine compassion. Can't we simply marvel at its beauty and magnificence? Can't we just accept it for what it is--an outpouring of love? If we can't answer the `why' question, can't we just appreciate how the depth of the tragedy is matched by the heights of human generosity. ... Do we have to turn everything into a scoreboard?"

It certainly does seem that at least some can't help but turn everything human tragedy into a scoreboard event.