Even Bush blames Bush (how often does that happen)
"So far, however, the reviews on how government responded are more sharply negative. The failings of the federal response to the disaster point directly to a vast new bureaucracy that was created in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency long responsible for federal action after natural disasters, has been absorbed into Homeland Security. And FEMA's traditional role of emergency preparedness has been shifted to a new office within Homeland Security that has no director.
The difference between FEMA's fumbled handling of Hurricane Katrina, after a successful response to four hurricanes in Florida last year, has led some critics to question the overall capacity of Homeland Security to deal with catastrophe.
"I am surprised that FEMA . . . has performed as slowly and apparently as ineptly as it has in Louisiana," said former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida.
"I think it's not only at the basic level that the buck does stop with the president," Graham said. "But also, he has now been in office five years, and he was the one who urged the adoption of the new department and the incorporation of FEMA into that department and has been overseeing the budgeting of all these homeland security activities. . . . He has a very direct responsibility."
Every good political cleansing starts with a confession. And Bush was ready with that before leaving Washington on Friday for an aerial and ground tour of the Gulf Coast destruction with his comment that relief efforts to date were "not acceptable." "
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ationworld-hed