[Polybius]

While the governors of both Mississippi and Alabama put in a formal request for federal assistance before Katrina even made landfall, the governor of Louisiana refused to relinquish any of her power for the good of the people. Now she and her party point the finger of blame at the White House.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.......... The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

[tarheelswamprat]

Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it [control] away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

It's late, and I'm tired, but I have finally seen this idiotic quote posted once too often for me to just let it pass. Do any of the mind-numbingly stupid political and media hacks who concocted and keep reporting this nonsense realize that they've screwed up and phrased their argument exactly backwards?

In any incident, only those in control are responsible; those who are not in control or authority are not. Simple logic dictates that if the Governor authorized the feds to take over, then the feds would be responsible and thus could be blamed for what went wrong. As long as she retained control, she's responsible.

Their logic is simply bizarre: "We're in command, so it's all your fault." Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Kenny Bunk]

You guys catch this?