Katrina And The Beast

Dick Meyer Applauds Skillful Wildfire Handling As A Rare Feat For Big Government

(CBS)  This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.

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The big news headline for the fires now called The Beast is this: "Few Die In Massive Southern California Wildfires."

It is that rare thing, a good news headline, if only in a silver-lining kind of a way. It is also the polar opposite (and, yes, I know the poles are melting and that’s why we have wildfires and floods, etc.) of the news headline that flooded out of Hurricane Katrina: "Many Die, Suffer In Massive Katrina Flooding Due To Local, Federal Failure."

One possible lesson from this is that all levels of government learned the hard way from Katrina that they can’t blow the big ones. After the disastrous handling of that disaster, there was a flood of punditry proclaiming that "competence" would become the primary demand made by political consumers. The idea was that the polarized and schizophrenic vox populi might stop arguing over whether government should be big or small and focus instead on making it minimally able to do the basics. Candidates would emphasize that management function and steer away from ideology and high-flying rhetoric.

That, of course, did not come to pass. Yes, President Bush learned enough to act involved and he headed to California right away. But that is stagecraft not statecraft. It is politics not governing.

Ray Nagin was re-elected mayor in New Orleans. Republicans did lose their hold in Congress, but because of the Persian Gulf not the Gulf of Mexico. None of the major presidential candidates in this cycle are campaigning on government competence and efficiency more than usual. Office-seekers always promise clean and able government. This Congress has passed little substantial legislation and has not addressed the deficit, entitlements or tax reform.

The amorphous beast known as Government - state, local and federal - is no more or less competent than usual in any generalized way. The truth is more prosaic. Most of the time large organizations face a crisis the response is chaotic and the outcome is neither failure nor success, but somewhere in the middle. The more organizations that are involved, the more chaos ensues.

The disaster of Katrina was exacerbated by political corruption in Louisiana and Mississippi, cronyism at FEMA, chronic under-funding of infrastructure maintenance and emergency preparedness. But a response that was deemed a stunning success would have been an anomaly, a shocker.

That is all good reason to be especially attentive to and grateful for the more skillful handling of The Beast. Over the next few days and weeks, there will be investigations and news stories that will uncover acts of stupidity, ineptness and bureaucratic bone-headedness. I would suggest focusing on the stories of bravery, ingenuity and cooperation instead.

The team that looks good on paper does not always win, as the Colorado Rockies have proven so perfectly this year. Part of what makes a winner is confidence, guts and attitude. We the voters, the political consumers of America, have allowed a generation of politicians to de-motivate and degrade government and public service.

It is not just an issue of small budgets and pork-barrel politics, though that matters greatly. Candidates get elected by declaring that "government is the problem, not the solution." And they attack each other relentlessly. We in the news business rarely are willing to cross the street to find an example of public servants who aren’t in the military doing something well. I’m guilty as hell of this myself.

And in this period of political climate change, we -- the spoiled, litigious and generally ungrateful citizens - expect sacrifice, perfection and accountability from our public servants. We resent our tax bills and berate not just politicians but government workers. When things go wrong, we are shocked and outraged and want scalps.

This no way to create a winning government. We’re like George Steinbrenner and our government plays like the Yankees, not the Rockies.

Good behavior in government and in bureaucracies is rarely rewarded, especially in public. The fact that so few people died amidst a "perfect storm" of fire and the evacuation of over a million people is astounding. It’s the headline.

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Against the Grain. We will publish some of the interesting (and civil) ones, sometimes in edited form.

[creeper00]

Awww, you bought the happy talk...hook, line and sinker. More than one fire official has taken exception to this. What do you say we wait till the flames are out before we declare this a smashing success?

[tejasdemo]

D ick,

They are handling it because it is a basically a bunch of millionaires homes getting destroyed and God knows we simply cant have that. What in the world would we do without all the millionaires ?!

[susanhelit]

Nope. Only a very few millionaire homes are being destroyed. The overwhelming majority belong to the ordinary everyday citizen. Yeesh, I know the media is lazy, and loves broadcasting the images of the homes of the rich and famous burning, but how little reading, or even common sense does it take to realize that Malibu is only one small area, and with some 10 fires, and a million in San Diego (which does not hold Malibu) evacuated - it''s not all, nor even mostly, nor even significantly millionaires?

The San Diego sports arena is full. Millionaires go to their other house. Middle class go to hotels or motels or shelters. Lower class go to shelters. The shelters are full of real people, not millionaires, at risk of losing it all from the fires.

[tejasdemo]

Yes, you''re right. I am sure there are lots of poor being affected in Malibu and San Diego.

Suuuuuuuure.

[jsilver2th]

Yes all of the politicians are congratulating themselves to getting their in time for some great photo ops- almost looks like they are doing something...

Why don''t you wait until the thing is over before laying you boquets at their feet-- the response looks pretty miserable to me...

[itsspideyman]

If President Bush did not show up along with everything else he would be castigated as heartless and uncaring.

You can''t win with a critic.

[scoob201]

San Diego is an example of how local communities, local governments and state governments are supposed to respond to emergencies. Unlike New Orleans, we haven''t been raised on Democrat handouts and aren''t accustomed to having the Federal government manage every aspect of our lives for us. We responded well because we still have some rugged individualism in us that allows us to react to situations without waiting around for the Feds with our outstretched hands. We don''t require the Feds here and certainly don''t need the Feds trying to politicize the fires.

Some Feds like Boxer have already seized her opportunity to get in front of a camera and pretend to be useful. She didn''t miss her chance to blame the Iraq war for not having enough National Guard on hand, even though there are plenty of Guard troops here, many more than needed actually. Worthless politicians simply can''t wait to demagogue the situation for their own gains.

[guysdigdirt]

the response looks pretty miserable to me...
Posted by jsilver2th

Then it is obvious you are not here watching and dealing with it yourself. Get educated before you pop off.

[guysdigdirt]

Nagan left those people to die in the dome, then blamed FEMA. Shame on the news media for letting him get away with it!
Posted by tburzio

And the people that stayed in their homes to protect themselves and their property... Nagen had the Guard and Officers take their weapons away, he did not have those officers track down the looters or the terror gangs, he left them alone and took the only protection law abiding citizens had away from them. Nagen is a hood and criminal.

[susanhelit]

It is going well. People have been told when they needed to evacuate, the evacuation centers have been well stocked, information is being communicated to the media and public, gov''t websites put out all the information out there.

Firefighters did the best they can, but in this environment, that''s only a defensive line, until the Santa Ana''s die out. How fast can we get airplanes (and when will they be able to take off without wind making it too dangerous or pointless for them to be there), how many national guardsmen can we get (there''s no limit to how many would be useful, if for nothing else than protecting evacuated neighborhoods from looters) - those can''t be fully answered now, and they''re susceptible to 20/20 hindsight - but all and all, it''s gone well.

[tbweb]

A Forest Ranger made an interesting observation on the news tonight, he just mentioned that the areas these homes are located in are dangerous outright, there is always the possibility of these homes burning down and that homes should not be built in these high risk areas in the first place!

[quatrops]

Comparing San Diego to Katrina? C''mon folks! You could hardly find two more disparate communities in terms of economics and state and local infrastructure!

Yes, the local and state politicians in Louisiana left much to be desired, but to argue that the federal response to Katrina was anything but incompetent, mismanaged, and all the other criticisms heaped upon it, even by the great majority of Republican politicians, is absurd; especially coming from a redundant poster who complains about the education level of those who disagree with him.

I''ve complained in another post that instead of being called a "unitary executive", Bush should be called a "urinary executive" for the ways in which he **ssed all over the Constitution.

So Bush is coming to California? I''ve an idea for our urinary executive borrowed from Jonathan Swift: Bush could play like Gulliver and *iss out the California fires!

What Clinton did to Monica Lewinski is the same as what Bush is doing to this nation.

[cbs_oliver]

Katrina was a 100 times larger event.

There is really no comparison.

[shoebox119]

A half million Californians displaced by a natural disaster. Two and one-half million Iraqis displaced by a man-made invasion/occupation. At least some Americans should be getting a clue as to what incredible hardship, anguish, and misery Bush and Cheney have unleashed on the other side of the globe.

[alanrobisch]

So Bush is coming to California? I''''ve an idea for our urinary executive borrowed from Jonathan Swift: Bush could play like Gulliver and *iss out the California fires!

What Clinton did to Monica Lewinski is the same as what Bush is doing to this nation.

Posted by Quatrops at 08:29 PM : Oct 24, 2007

I see you are at it as well as ever never give a republican an even chance. by the way if you didn''t notice people of your same ilk tried to make it political by saying that things were going badly due to the war in iraq. funny on the way to there attack they were surprised by facts those inconvenient things. In fact the govt in california at all levels have done well and have needed supplies in every instance. You might also note the gov is a pub. I wonder how he could be competent Aren''t all pubs incompetent?

the head of the national gaurd has stated he has had all the help he needs and even returned national gaurdsmen that were sent because he didn''t need them. Is ist just possible that in a dificult situation the govt was prepared as were the people

[alanrobisch]

At least some Americans should be getting a clue as to what incredible hardship, anguish, and misery Bush and Cheney have unleashed on the other side of the globe.


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Posted by shoebox119 at 09:55 PM : Oct 24, 2007


Yeah unlike their prior leader who just murdered them to stay in power and built stately mansions from money meant to help the poor in his country. I know the idea of perspective never occurs to any of you but try it someday

[shoebox119]

Yeah unlike their prior leader who just murdered them to stay in power and built stately mansions from money meant to help the poor in his country. I know the idea of perspective never occurs to any of you but try it someday

Posted by alanrobisch2 at 10:02 PM : Oct 24, 2007


So, you believe it''s justifiable that we invade and occupy countries based solely on whose respective leaders we don''t like? Who''s next? Cuba? Iran? China? Venezuela? By the way, if that''s the reason we went into Iraq, perhaps you can explain why did we waited so long? Saddam Hussein''s brutal attacks against the Kurds date back about 20 years. And since you cherish "perspective" so much, Saddam succeeded inlarge part thanks in large part to the United States, who had been helping him arm to the teeth in Iraq''s war aginst Iran the previous five years. (You must just love that famous picture of a smiling Rummy shaking hands with the murdereous Hussein, huh, Al?)

[quatrops]

Robisch:

1. Someone who refers to his debate opponents as "your ilk" and other pejorative terms is hardly a champion of "civil discourse".

2. The governor of California is doing a competent job. One of the reasons is that when he makes a mistake he readily admits it and changes policies accordingly.

3. Many of us feel that there are many good, honerable Republicans out there, even though we disagree with them. Sadly, in order to retain some electability, they have to appear to respect the party "leader". What most progressives are complaining about is a lying, incompetent President (who, too often, has appointed incompetent party hacks to responsible positions) and a Vice-President who is as close to being a fascist as I hope this country ever sees.

[jowand]

As for the Beast, this time it was local and the state and city authorites have done an amazing job. Only one death, too many volunteers, too many supplies at the "Q". You have to give it up to Mayor Sanders, first for cleaning up the Red Cross in San Diego, and for keeping everyone informed. TV and radio in San Diego delivered up to the minute and accurate public safety information.
Posted by koko98 at 02:33 AM : Oct 25, 2007

You can''t compare San Diego and N Orleans, N Orleans had a totally incompetent mayor and the governor of LA was a clown.

[perception5]

Mr. Meyers their is a reason why this situation is different from the Katrina situation.

Number 1: In California we have a Republican Mayor in San Diego and a Republican Govnernor in Arnold.
With Katrina we had a Democrat Mayor who refused to evacuate the poor people in the DAYS before Katrina hit and a Democrat Governor that told our President that the levees were fine when in fact they weren''t.

That''s the difference Republican know how to "manage" things much better than Democrats.

I simply point to our 110 Do Nothing Democrat Congress for another example to prove my point.

Mr. Meyers its long past time that America''s corrupt liberal MSM wolfpack press STOPS propping up their close pals the Democrat Party and provide Americans will the truth and hard facts.

Our liberal wolfpack press should be calling "balls and strikes" not "pitching" the game.

Diversity your liberal staff at CBS (Corrupt Broadcasting Station).

[quatrops]

Perception5 at 9:03:

1. You, and others keep harping on the failures at the local & state level in Louisiana vs. successes of same in California. That Louisiana politics has a decades-long history of incompetence is a given. California, under both parties, has been more fortunate. The POINT is that the FEDERAL RESPONSE to Katrina was INCOMPETENT, INADEQUATE, and MISMANAGED! Even the majority of Republican politicians in Washington admit to that!

2. You complain about the "110 do-nothing Democratic congress". With a veto (S-CHIP) or threat of veto, NO narrow-margin opposite party congress has EVER made significant accomplishments. Why don''t you discuss the failure of the 2000, 2002, and 2004 failures of congress to provide significant legislation?

3. What does "diversity your liberal staff" mean? Assuming you meant "diversify", explain the preponderance of articles from NRO and Weekly Standard on CBS. Tell me about diversity on talk radio or Fox News.

[drivelphobe]

Katrina hit an area full of poor, uneducated blacks, with a corrupt mayor, obviously incompetent and self-serving. No one cared much about the residents and they had very little political clout, if any at all.

The California fires have hit areas of wealthy, educated white people, with adequate resources and heavy political connections.

Both are disasters of great magnitude, but the bottom line is, there was little concern for the residents of New Orleans and the surrouunding affected areas, while there is much concern for the population affected by the California fires.

Poor populations have less, get less and are easy victims. The news printed the image in our minds of an over-weight, black woman, with several boxes of new shoes she had just looted from a store, wading through filthy water and claiming her actions were justified as survival behaviour.

In California, the news shows hundreds of volunteers and nothing but orderly management of evacuees.

It is a hard life when you are poor, uneducated and living on entitlements, but that''s the way it is.

[alomarsmom]

When the rich people had a disaster the government sprang into action. When the poor people had one no one in authority cared. If something happens in a poor part of California things will be very different I am sure.

[drivelphobe]

alomarsmom...

You are right, and time will prove it. I may try to rent a guest house from some rich guy so I have a better chance in the event of a disaster.

[andor3]

The reason the response has been successful is because Californians still (to some degree) have faith in governement, still believe it makes sense to pay taxes and expect services, still understand that there are things that need to be provided by pooling all citizen resources and not for profit.

Any successful government operation is a huge setback for Bush&Co and their elite friends who want the government seen as incompetent. Of course they need votes too--must suck to be them right now.

[krenz4]

alosmarmo: You are soooo right! You let all of Oakland burn down and you will see no services or squalor like the poor people caught up in Katrina saw. These Californians actually had live music, and massages for pete sake! The fed says they "learned" from Katrina and thats bull. Did they have to "learn" not to send people to a shelter that they were not providing any services to? What a joke They wanted the poor and the black out of New Orleans and thats just what has happened. Those same feds will be rebilding Mcmansions in Cali so fast it will make all of heads spin!

[alanrobisch]

What most progressives are complaining about is a lying, incompetent President (who, too often, has appointed incompetent party hacks to responsible positions) and a Vice-President who is as close to being a fascist as I hope this country ever sees.


Posted by Quatrops at 12:26 AM : Oct 25, 2007

Lets see in your civil comments you called the vp a fascist and the president a liar. If this is civil discourse I don''t want any. Btw what is a fascist and what makes him a fascist? also are only liberals like you progressives? I thought progress in a positive direction was characterized a progressive. The changes such as legalized abortion homosexual marriage are not changes in the right direction. Therefore imho you are stealing the term progressive to avoid the now often perjorative term of liberal. but the famous phrase that a rose is a rose no matter what the name will smell as nice fits here with liberals aka progressives have the same agenda but change their name to try and avoid the negatives of being called a liberal. Much like pro chice which I''m sure you are but you care for poor and those without power yet you advocate the right to kill the unborn who have no power.

[quatrops]

You''ve learned the neo-con lesson well, Robisch. Framing the question or defining the terms to their advantage is ALWAYS step #1 for them. Rove was unmatched in his ability to do this.

Discourse, in my dictionary, implies an exchange of ideas. I''m not exchanging ideas with Bush/Cheney (nor am I likely to), so I will call them whatever I choose. I''ll still attempt to be civil, but you DO make it difficult.

Re Cheney as a fascist: Dictionary defines fascism as "a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, supression of opposition through terror or censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism or racism." One has only to look at Cheney''s words and revealed actions vis-a-vis the extra-constitutional "unitary executive" mindset, his gothic attitude about torture etc. etc. to understand the appellation is not far off the mark.

Rove and other neo-con masters of diffusion (see above) have co-opted the term "liberal" to the extent that many of us prefer the "progressive" label.

So YOU have decided that abortion and homosexual marriage are not "moving in the right direction", so those of us who are pro-choice and are not threatened by the political activities of the homosexual community may not call ourselves "progressive"? That kind of effrontary is becoming less surprising to me.

Our disagreement about the nature of fetal "life" will have to wait for another post.

[rickstas]

You said: "The disaster of Katrina was exacerbated by political corruption in Louisiana and Mississippi, cronyism at FEMA, chronic under-funding of infrastructure maintenance and emergency preparedness." You forgot to mention that it was much further exacerbated by the Lousiana Natiional Guard being in Iraq instead of Lousiana where they were supposed to be. If they had been there, we would not have had to depend on Chertoff and Bush.

[brianbwb-2009]

That failure to help the victims Katrina was a result of blatant racism was proven by Babs Bush''s comments, laughing and taking pleasure in the plight of "those people".

California gets service because the vast majority of those affected were rich people, combined with the fact that Bush''s party couldn''t stand to be labeled a failure twice, and so close to an election.

Here is a prediction, there will be disasters in the future, and they will be handled exactly the same as these two, depending on the economic and racial status of the victims, and the proximity of an election.

Here is another, disasters whose victims are predominantly non rich and "white", will always receive less than their fair share of aid.

[andor3]

Article is flawed start to finish. No one is calling these fires "the Beast." No one. I think that is a roller coaster.

And this article continues the attempt to plant and nurture the idea that "big government" (whatever that means) can never--or rarely--do anything right.

[knyghtwolf]

bush sez, "Born inna sewer, raised in a cave, destruction of the world, and total corruption is all I crave. " Nuff said....okay, georgie, play nice or you will have to go home.......REAL soon.

[alanrobisch]

Here is another, disasters whose victims are predominantly non rich and "white", will always receive less than their fair share of aid.


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Posted by brianbwb at 02:04 AM : Oct 26, 2007

Baloney You are making racist comments and assuming what you don''t know. New Orleans was its own worst enemy with a disaster waiting to happen. Ray Nagin a black mayor failed to create escape methods for the poor and did not have a plan set when it happenned. Maybe just maybe it was ineptitude on his part.

Governor Blanco dem a white woman did not run for reelections because of Katrina. its apparent too that she was not ready to deal with the disaster.

Louisiana is one of the most corrupt if not the most corrupt state in the Union. It used money needed to solve these problems by lining there own pockets and not hiring competent individuals to solve the problems.

It is also obvious that if you have the money and the proper planning the results of a disaster can be mitigated. I might note that Katrina caused enormous damage to not so poor neighbors along the gulf coast and they also are still digging out. Was it racism that has made it difficult to dig out.

[alanrobisch]

ps
Maybe we should acknowledge that natural disasters are going to occur that we cannot prevent or survive and that katrina and San diego have one esential thing in common. They both have built where natural disasters are almost a gaurantee. We humans tend to do this. See the flourishing Italian cities around vesuvius. it is very possible that a repeat of Pompei could happen again but there is no serious plan to evacuate the area if an eruption occurred

[alanrobisch]

Our disagreement about the nature of fetal "life" will have to wait for another post.


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Posted by Quatrops at 08:06 PM : Oct 25, 2007
+ report abuse

If you can come up with a scientific view that demonstrates that a child in utero is not a human life I''ll eat my hat

[alanrobisch]

Lets see because you are in effect talking behind their backs its okay to lie and insult them. also fascism was musolinni and hitler. If you had made the comments you made about the potus or the veep in a fascist state you would be dead or in jail

[ssspushpdia]

I LIKE YAU MEHAK RAJORIE

[ssspushpdia]

I LIKE YAU MEHAK RAJORIE