I understand that quite well thank you.
The local government had sole resposibility for the convention center for the first 4 days as per pre-established division of responsiblity.
I understand the division of responsibillities quite well also. There is no doubt that that the mayor and governor bear the lion's share of the blame. They were incompetent to a criminal degree. They dropped the ball.
If you want to change the role of FEMA in the future and turn in into a first responder then debate that, but I am sick of the FEMA bashers setting up a fake standard by pretending it is a first responder and then being shocked, shocked it did not act as a first responder.
This is where we part company. First, I am not bashing FEMA, I am blaming the entire federal government for not stepping in sooner at a critical juncture of the relief effort in NO. Just as you are frustrated by "FEMA bashers," I am upset by those who completely exonorate the feds using legalisms and bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.
The feds and NGOs had the resources available to lance the boils at the Convention Center and Superdome days before. They were assembled at the doorstep of the city waiting to go in while the MSM were reporting and televising the scenes at the overpass and the Superdome. The reports of violence, disorder, and suffering fed the fire of "Blame Bush" with the Black Caucus leading the way to introduce race into the equation.
The question is should the federal government stand by and allow American citizens to suffer and die because incompetent state and local governments prevent first responders from doing their job. The Red Cross and Salvation Army were prevented by the LA Office of Homeland Security from bringing their personnel and supplies to these locations prior to the hurricane and afterwards. First responders were being shot at hampering their ability to minister to the needs of the victims. Looters were running rampant.
I am a retired federal government bureaucrat with over 36 years of service. I know the corporate culture. I understand the need for rules and regulations. I understand the concept of federalism and states' rights and responsibilities. I understand that state and local governments are primarily responsible for disaster relief and the federal government provides the requested resources to assist them. That said, there are times when extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary actions.
The American public doesn't care about the division of responsibilties. They want results. Politicians understand that, bureaucrats don't.
Your explanation fails to address the fact that the Feds cannot legally just take over the state. It is easy to sit back and say he should have broken the law including court precident reguarding states rights. When the state governemnt was purposefully blocking Bush and the Feds, how were they supposed to know ahead of time that the state, who was saying "No way, stay out, we will handle it" was in fact getting ready to not do the job?
I suppose you will think I am trying to "completely exonorate the feds using legalisms" but I am not. I am just looking at the situation realistically.
The only fault I see in the fed reaction was they did not have carbon copies of Rumsfield in each position, and they did not just tell the press to go to h-ll in strong terms from the beginning. Even then, what seems like bad media performance is 95% due to out of context quotes and spin by the media. If a democrat would have been in power the offical's best lines would have been quoted.
Bush asked Pelosi "What do you think went wrong [at the federal level]?" and even according to her story she had no answer to the question and just called him names instead of answering.