Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) on FEMA's Michael Brown
KRT Wire | 09/09/2005 | OCEAN SPRINGS | Center offers multiple relief services, long waits:
"LOTT'S STATEMENT: U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss, talks about the decision to replace former FEMA Director Michael Brown. Replacing Brown as FEMA Director is Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen."
Sounds like Sen. Lott is a bit ahead of the curve, Brown is not the "former" FEMA director ... yet.
Lott also makes a curious criticism:
"When you're in the middle of a disaster, you can't stop to check the legal niceties or to review FEMA regulations before deciding to help Mississippians knocked flat on their backs."
Say what you will about Michael Brown, he is an attorney and he came to head the agency after serving as its general counsel. Of course he's going to follow the law, both as an officer of the courts and like all federal officials, he took an oath to do so. For Lott, who has played a major role in writing our laws for many years, to fault a federal employee for following the law is deeply troubling to me.
posted by J. Keen Holland @ 4:10 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"...you can't stop to check the legal niceties..."
I'm sure Trent Lott spoke with feeling. But unfortunately that's also what he was using in place of reason. (Wasn't that once the behavior of faux liberals?)
Either we are citizens whose government is restricted in its actions by law or we are subjects ruled by those who consider the law an inconvenience. Call out the active duty military to restore order! (Posse comitatus act, anyone?) Ignore any inconvenient law!
It seems that R.L. Dabney, the 19th Century theologian (and onetime member of R.R. Lee's genral staff) had it right:
"American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth."
heh: that's "member of R.E. Lee's general staff"
Re: FEMA
I have no love lost for FEMA. They've screwed up in just about every emergency they've dealt with over the last umpteen years -- simply standard federal bureaucracy. However, in this case I think they may have performed about as well as they could have as a big lumbering bureaucratic agency.
Somewhere I read in the last 2-3 days that it took FEMA 10 days to set up in SC after Hugo in '99(?). It only took four days for Katrina--quite an improvement.
Re: Trent Lott
I want to see him in a high wind situation. Will that high dollar piece of carpet stay in place. Just as Strom should have returned to Edgefield 20 years prior to beginning his eternal celestial dirt nap and KKK Byrd needs to RTB in WV permanently, Lott needs to resume permanent residence in MS.
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