Wouldya Believe?

I am in mourning today, as the star of my favorite teevee show of all time has died:

Don Adams, Television's Maxwell Smart, Dies at 82
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the 1960's sitcom "Get Smart," combining clipped, decisive diction with appalling, hilarious ineptitude, died on Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82.

Killer Dolphins on the Loose

Chris sends along this important notice, originally published in the (British) Observer:

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer


It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.

Stay on the lookout!

Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions

Adam sends along this article from the NYT:

September 26, 2005
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.

The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.

More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.

Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA. [...]

An argument for immediate withdrawal from Iraq

The always stellar Tomdispatch comes up with another excellent essay Why Immediate Withdrawal Makes Sense by Michael Schwartz -- the first piece that I have seen successfully making the case.

Juan Cole gives his response.

from an impeccable source

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"

"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband."

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

"The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. "And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control."

Another source said: "I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him."

Another source said: "A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper." Bush's history of drinking dates back to his youth. Speaking of his time as a young man in the National Guard, he has said: "One thing I remember, and I'm most proud of, is my drinking and partying. Those were the days my friends. Those were the good old days!"

Age 26 in 1972, he reportedly rounded off a night's boozing with his 16-year-old brother Marvin by challenging his father to a fight.

On November 1, 2000, on the eve of his first presidential election, Bush acknowledged that in 1976 he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents' home in Maine. Age 30 at the time, Bush pleaded guilty and paid a $150 fine. His driving privileges were temporarily suspended in Maine.

"I'm not proud of that," he said. "I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did that night. I learned my lesson." In another interview around that time, he said: "Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted... and they required hitting bottom (to start) going to AA. I don't think that was my case."

During his 2000 presidential campaign, there were also persistent questions about past cocaine use. Eventually Bush denied using cocaine after 1992, then quickly extended the cocaine-free period back to 1974, when he was 28.

Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer: "I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great.

"I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening."

Published on: 09/21/2005

repubs and the press

just one example of how it works:

Another Win for 'Friends & Allies'
When John G. Roberts is approved as chief justice of the United States, as expected, he can thank President Bush 's "Friends & Allies" program, which went to work on him immediately after he was nominated. The project, started by the Republican National Committee in the 2004 re-election campaign, is simple and effective: Give opinion makers, media friends, and even cocktail party hosts insider info on the topic of the day. How? Through E-mailed talking points, called D.C. Talkers, and conference calls. For Roberts, it worked this way: A daily conference call to about 80 pundits, GOP-leaning radio and TV hosts, and newsmakers was made around 9 a.m. On the other end were the main Roberts gunslingers like Steve Schmidt at the White House and Ken Mehlman and Brian Jones at the RNC. D.C. Talkers would then be distributed to an even larger list filled with positive info about Roberts and lines of attack on his critics. "The idea," said one of those involved, "is to feed them information and have them invested in us." It has even created addicts, he added. "Now they come to us before going on TV."

the latest from Michelle Chen

Says Michelle:

To wrap up our eventful summer, here is more news on just how screwed we are as a nation. Enjoy the fall!

Go see her latest work on Katrina, Housing, and Fuel Standards:

Michelle Chen

Michelle Chen is a Core Contributor to The NewStandard. She writes, works and plays in New York City. Involved with independent media for the past nine years, she has written for the South China Morning Post, Clamor, INTHEFRAY.COM and her own zine, cain.

Matt Damon had Bush pegged back in 1997

click on title

preemptive use of nukes

good roundup:

World > Terrorism & Security
posted September 14, 2005 at 11:00 p.m.

Pentagon draft plan calls for preemptive use of nukes
Critics say plan is designed for possible attack against Iran.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Potty Break

from Reuters:




Steve Soto has a photo essay

Tomdispatch on Oraq

TomDispatch has been better than ever lately -- especially this brilliant piece, Tom Englehardt and Nick Turse's finest work:

Tomgram: The Reconstruction of New Oraq

Corporations of the Whirlwind
The Reconstruction of New Oraq

Teaching 9/11

Interesting article by Jon Weiner Teaching 9/11 on how textbooks teach and the inevitable ensuing controversy.

He refers to an interesting Eric Foner piece on thinking about American History after 9/11. We are reading this article in my Historical Methods class this week. The assignment:

Sept 13 – Why Bother? …
Read Peter N. Stearns, “Why Study History?”

Read David Oshinsky, “Humpty Dumpty of Scholarship: History Has Broken Into Pieces”

Read Gerald W. Schlabach, “A Sense of History: Some Components”

Read Eric Foner, “Rethinking American History in a Post-9/11 World”

Paper due (3 pages): After reading the four articles above, write an essay addressing the question, What is the most compelling reason to study history? Be sure to engage with some of the points made in the articles.

oh I love this one...

End of the Bush Era

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; A27

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this. [...]

if you are thinking of going into politics...

... then I don't recommend this article from Rolling Stone:

Four Amendments & a Funeral
A month inside the house of horrors that is Congress
By MATT TAIBBI

Saturday event at New Jersey Historical Society

Immigration and The American Dream Post 9/11
Saturday, September 17 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
The New Jersey Historical Society

What laws protect immigrants' rights to attain the American Dream?

How can we support the tradition of immigration that formed America?

Do laws intended to prevent terror attacks violate our civil liberties?

Join us on Citizenship Day, an official holiday since 1952, designated to discuss, honor and celebrate the privileges and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.

Our distinguished guest panel of civil rights advocates, community leaders and immigration policy professionals will examine U.S. immigration issues post 9/11, and take your questions in this open forum.

Partha Banerjee, PhD., Executive Director, New Jersey Immigration Policy Network

Jesse Taylor, Immigrant Rights Advocate with Project Hospitality

Mary Kay Jou, Training Director, International Institute of New Jersey

Ana Archila, Executive Director, Latin American Integration Center

FREE!

Refreshments will be served.

Please call 973-596-8500 ext. 234 to save your space.
The New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102
www.jerseyhistory.org

my reading

Since I have removed the links from the page temporarily (until I get around to figuring out why they were messing with my page), I thought I would tell my readers what my (almost daily) reading list consists of:

New York Times -- though next week the opinion page goes behind a firewall and you must pay for the immortal Krugman

Washington Post -- especially Dan Froomkin's essential White House Briefing published daily in the early afternoon

Atrios/Eschaton -- good site for frequently update links to liberal takes on the issues

DailyKos -- similar to Atrios

Digby @ Hullabaloo -- THE best commentator out there

Billmon @ Whiskey Bar -- almost as good as Digby

TomDispatch -- great essays by Tom Englehardt and friends

Wolcott -- snarky and dazzling with the prose

Juan Cole -- great on Iraq and Middle East in general

Salon -- firewall -- ya gotta watch a commercial -- but some good stuff including the daily War Room and the Daou Report blog round-up

The Progress Report -- a daily email from the Center for American Progress that is meticulously researched

There are plenty more, but that's a start

oh, and I shouldn't leave off the mags I read:

New Yorker -- usually pretty weak webpage but some of the best reporting

The Atlantic -- good webpage

Harpers -- weak webpage, great mag

New York Review of Books -- webpage has about half the articles

race, poverty & politics

Digby has some brilliant insights in these postings:

Dusting Off The Manual

and American Welfare

Bush and Katrina

I guess I shouldn't be surprised -- but I continue to be -- at the staggering incompetence and carelessness (to say the least) of the Bush Administration. This report from Newsweek is just one that lays it out. Note that Bush didn't really understand until THURSDAY and note that all of his aides were too afraid to tell him how bad things were:

How Bush Blew It

This is not a partisan bashing of Bush, but a fairly straightforward reporting. If you want the partisan precis, check out Americablog.

NYT Magazine on War on Terror & Bin Laden

A couple of excellent article in the NYTimes Magazine: the first is a very powerful and concise overview on four years of the "war on terror":

Taking Stock of the Forever War
By MARK DANNER
Published: September 11, 2005

The other is a chilling account of the failure to capture Bin Laden:

Lost at Tora Bora
By MARY ANNE WEAVER
Published: September 11, 2005

Money quote:

It was only on the third day of the battle that the three dozen Special Forces troops arrived. But their mission was strictly limited to assisting and advising and calling in air strikes, according to the orders of Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, who was running the war from his headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

Three dozen!!! I guess the armed forces were already gearing up for Iraq.

Iran Anyone?

From today's WaPo:

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; Page A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Save CBGB

Sign the petition at SaveCBGB

blog maintenance

something wrong with the blog layout, so I have temporarily removed all links and archives. I hope to fix it soon.

John Kerry @ WPU this Saturday

The Department of Political Science would like to invite you to come out and hear John Kerry speak on issues of importance to New Jersey voters.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

11:00 a.m.

Shea Auditorium Steps

"Fear, Freedom, and the U.S. Constitution"

Lecture next week at WPU:

Constitution Day
A Public Lecture by
Corey Robin (City University of New York),
Award-winning author of Fear: the History of a Political Idea

"Fear, Freedom, and the U.S. Constitution"

The lecture will be followed by a moderated Town Hall Debate in which all are invited to participate.

Refreshments will be served.

This program is free and open to the public, and faculty are strongly encouraged to bring their classes.

Sponsored by the American Democracy Project of William Paterson University, the Office of the Provost, the Office of Student Development, the David and Larraine Cheng Library, and the Department of Political Science.

Sept. 15th, 2005 from 3:30pm-4:45pm in the Shea Auditorium

Contact adp@wpunj.edu for more information

"What didn't go right?"

This article brings together pretty much everything I have been noticing about the govt's lack of response to Katrina. Go to the original article to click on the links.

"What didn't go right?"
President Bush's absurd question underscores the arrogance of an administration whose "limited government" agenda is responsible for the disastrous federal response to Katrina.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal


Sept. 8, 2005 | The Bush administration's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina stands as the pluperfect case study of the Republican Party's theory and practice of government. For decades conservatives have funded think tanks, filled libraries and conducted political campaigns to promote the idea of limited government. Now, in New Orleans, the theory has been tested. The floodwaters have rolled over the rhetoric.

Under Bush, government has been "limited" only in certain weak spots, like levees, while in other spots it has vastly expanded into a behemoth subsisting on the greatest deficit spending in our history. State and local governments have not been empowered, but rendered impotent, in the face of circumstances beyond their means in which they have desperately requested federal intervention. Experienced professionals in government have been forced out, tried-and-true policies discarded, expert research ignored, and cronies elevated to senior management.

Before Katrina, the Republican theory received its most apposite formulation by a prominent lobbyist and close advisor to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, who said about government that he wanted to "drown it in the bathtub." In relation to the waters that surround it, New Orleans has been described as a bathtub, and it has served as the bathtub for Norquist's wish.

Only two people in the light of recent events have had the daring to articulate a defense of the Republican idea of government. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, asked about rebuilding New Orleans, volunteered: "It doesn't make sense to me." He elaborated: "I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought to take a second look at that." Thus Hastert upheld rugged individualism over a modern federal union. Just a month earlier, as it happened, Hastert had put out a press release crowing about his ability to win federal disaster relief for drought-stricken farmers in his Illinois district. While he was too preoccupied attending a campaign fundraiser for a Republican colleague to travel to Washington to vote for the $10.5 billion emergency appropriation to deal with Katrina's aftereffects, he did finally return to the capital to push for even more drought aid from the Department of Agriculture. Hastert's philosophy is not undermined by his stupendous hypocrisy, for hypocrisy is at the center of the Republican idea. Hastert simply has the shamelessness of his convictions.

The second defender was Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for which he was qualified by a résumé that includes being fired from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and, more important, having been the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and Brown's predecessor at FEMA. On Sept. 1, Brown stated: "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." Brown was unintentionally Swiftian in his savage irony. The next day, President Bush patted him on the back: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Brown exemplifies the Bush approach to government, a blend of cynicism, cronyism, and incompetence presented with faux innocence as well-meaning service and utter surprise at things going wrong.

Even as the floodwaters poured into New Orleans, unimpeded by any federal effort to stanch the flow, the White House mustered a tightly coordinated rapid response of political damage control. Karl Rove assumed emergency management powers. The strategy was to dampen any criticism of the president, rally the Republican base, and cast blame on the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana, both Democrats. It was a classic Bush ploy against the backdrop of crisis. The object was to polarize the nation along partisan lines as swiftly as possible. While policy collapsed, politics reigned. Once again, Bush the divider, not the uniter, emerged.

The White House released a waterfall of themes. No matter how contradictory, administration officials maintained message discipline. The first imperative was to disclaim and deflect responsibility. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admonished the press corps, "This is not a time to get into any finger-pointing or politics or anything of that nature." The president down to the lowliest talk show hosts echoed the line that criticism during the crisis and reporting its causes were unseemly and vaguely unpatriotic.

After establishing that line, the White House laid out other messages to avoiding responsibility. Bush declared, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." From his bully pulpit he intended to drown out the reports trickling into print media that he had cut the funding for rebuilding the levees and for flood control. Then Bush assumed the pose of the president above the fray, sadly calling the response "unacceptable." Meanwhile, he praised "Brownie."

After Sept. 11, there was an external enemy, "evildoers" against whom to summon fear and fervor. Now, instead, the flood has brought to the surface the deepest national questions of race, class and inequality. On Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane hit, the Census Bureau released figures showing that the poor had increased by 1.1 million since 2003, to 12.7 percent of the population, the fourth annual increase, with blacks and Hispanics the poorest, and the South remaining the poorest region. Since Bush has been in office, poverty has grown by almost 9 percent. (Under President Clinton, poverty fell by 25 percent.) As these issues began to receive serious attention for the first time in years, Bush reiterated that it was inappropriate to "play the blame game."

Meanwhile, his aides sought to blame New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. On Sept. 3, the Washington Post, citing an anonymous "senior administration official," reported that Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency." Newsweek published a similar report. Within hours, however, the Post published a correction; the report was false. In fact, Blanco had declared an emergency on Aug. 26 and sent President Bush a letter on Aug. 27 requesting that the federal government declare an emergency and provide aid; and, in fact, Bush did make such a declaration, thereby accepting responsibility. Nonetheless, these facts have not stymied White House aides from their drumbeat that state and local officials -- but curiously, not the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama -- are ultimately to blame.

Yet others operated off-message, casting aspersions on the hurricane's victims. The president's mother, Barbara Bush, interviewed on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program," said of the displaced from Louisiana who are temporarily housed in Houston's Astrodome, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them."

And Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., suggested that the residents of New Orleans who failed to escape the flood should be punished. "I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

The White House sought to turn back the rising tide of anger among blacks by deputizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During the early days of the hurricane and flood, she had been vacationing in New York, taking in Monty Python's "Spamalot" and spending thousands on shoes at Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. In the store, a fellow shopper reportedly confronted her, saying, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" -- prompting security men to bodily remove the woman. A week after the hurricane, Rice mounted the pulpit at a black church in Whistler, Ala. "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time," she preached, "if we just wait." One hundred and 10 years after Booker T. Washington counseled patience and acceptance to the race in his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech in the aftermath of Reconstruction's betrayal, the highest African-American official in the land updated his advice of forbearance.

After a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Bush warned against the "blame game" as he pointed his finger: "Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people." His aides briefed reporters on background that "bureaucracy" of course referred to state and local officials. That night, at the White House, Bush met with congressional leaders of both parties, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Bush to fire Brown. "Why would I do that?" the president replied. "Because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week," she explained. To which he answered, "What didn't go right?"

Bush's denigration of "bureaucracy" raises the question of the principals responsible in his own bureaucracy. Within hours of the president's statement, the Associated Press reported that FEMA director Michael Brown had waited five hours after the hurricane struck to request 1,000 workers from Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Part of their mission, he wrote, would be to "convey a positive image" of the administration's response.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune disclosed that Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center, briefed Brown and Chertoff before the hurricane made landfall of its potential disastrous consequences. "We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped." The day after Bush's Cabinet room attack on bureaucracy, the St. Petersburg Times revealed that Mayfield had also briefed President Bush in a video conference call. "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield said.

After its creation in 1979, FEMA became "a political dumping ground," according to a former FEMA advisory board member. Its ineffective performance after Hurricane Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 exposed the agency's shortcomings. Then Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina called it "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." President Clinton appointed James Lee Witt as the new director, the first one ever to have had experience in the field. Witt reinvented the agency, setting high professional standards and efficiently dealing with disasters.

FEMA's success as a showcase federal agency made it an inviting target for the incoming Bush team. Allbaugh, Bush's former campaign manager, became the new director, and he immediately began to dismantle the professional staff, privatize many functions and degrade its operations. In his testimony before the Senate, Allbaugh attacked the agency he headed as an example of unresponsive bureaucracy: "Many are concerned that Federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective State and local risk management. Expectations of when the Federal Government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level. We must restore the predominant role of State and local response to most disasters."

After Sept. 11, 2001, FEMA was subsumed into the new Department of Homeland Security and lost its Cabinet rank. The staff was cut by more than 10 percent, and the budget has been cut every year since and most of its disaster relief efforts disbanded. "Three out of every four dollars the agency provides in local preparedness and first-responder grants go to terrorism-related activities, even though a recent Government Accountability Office report quotes local officials as saying what they really need is money to prepare for natural disasters and accidents," the Los Angeles Times reported.

After Allbaugh retired from FEMA in 2003, handing over the agency to his deputy and college roommate, Brown, he set up a lucrative lobbying firm, the Allbaugh Co., which mounts "legislative and regulatory campaigns" for its corporate clients, according its Web site. After the Iraq war, Allbaugh established New Bridge Strategies to facilitate business for contractors there. He also created Diligence, a firm to provide security to private companies operating in Iraq. Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and now governor of Mississippi, helped Allbaugh start all his ventures through his lobbying and law firm, Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Indeed, the entire Allbaugh complex is housed at Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Ed Rogers, Barbour's partner, has become a vice president of Diligence. Diane Allbaugh, Allbaugh's wife, went to work at Barbour Griffith and Rogers. And Neil Bush, the president's brother, received $60,000 as a consultant to New Bridge Strategies.

On Sept. 1, the Pentagon announced the award of a major contract for repair of damaged naval facilities on the Gulf Coast to Halliburton, the firm whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney and whose chief lobbyist is Joe Allbaugh.

Hurricane Katrina is the anti-9/11 in its divisive political effect, its unearthing of underlying domestic problems, and its disorienting impact on the president and his administration. Yet, in other ways, the failure of government before the hurricane struck is reminiscent of the failures leading into 9/11. The demotion of FEMA resembles the demotion of counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. In both cases, the administration ignored clear warnings.

In a conversation with a former diplomat with decades of experience, I raised these parallels. But the Bush administration response evoked something else for him. "It reminds me of Africa," he said. "Governments that prey on their people."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.

Katrina

So much to say about Hurricane Katrina -- too much, really, for me to handle right now. But I did want to point to a couple of standout articles, both published by the always extraordinary Tomdispatch. See:

Tomgram: Bill McKibben on Planet New Orleans

and

Tomgram: Iraq in America

At the Front of Nowhere at All
The Perfect Storm and the Feral City
By Tom Engelhardt