The destruction visited on New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has certainly occasioned a lot of Michael Brown criticism, but now that the racism charge is starting to lose its luster, I find it remarkable anyone would believe a charge of sexism could fare much better.
And yet, here’s Miss Alli, she of the outrage that President Bush didn’t “freak the fuck out” in the early days of Katrina, arguing that Michael Brown is a failure precisely because he did, in that he began frantically reaching out to anyone close to Governor Blanco who might conceivably get through to her. Like, for instance, her husband. Which, as it turns out, makes Brown a filthy filthy sexist. Writes Miss Alli:
From CNN, a little more insight about just how much Michael Brown sucks:
Speaking to The New York Times, his first public comments since he was relieved, Brown laid the blame on Blanco and Nagin. He told the newspaper he frantically called Chertoff and the White House in the hours after Katrina hit, telling them Blanco and her staff were disorganized and the situation was “out of control.”
“I am having a horrible time,” Brown said he told his superiors. “I can’t get a unified command established.”
Brown told the Times that he had such difficulty dealing with Blanco that he communicated with her husband instead.
Isn’t that charming? He dealt with her husband. When, do you suppose, was the last time he went around a male governor to the male governor’s wife? Do these guys even hear themselves? Do they hear what a bunch of patronizing jackasses they sound like?
As has already been reported by the CRS and explained a few posts down, Blanco—all by herself, acting as the governor, without her husband co-signing—signed the necessary declarations for FEMA to come in. The national plans call for FEMA to take the lead in a situation like this, whether Brown wants to admit it or not.
And I’ll tell you right now, that comment smacks of the most rank sort of sexism, and if perhaps Brown was unable to talk to Blanco because he only likes dealing with men? That’s probably part of what went wrong. Every woman in a position of any authority has had the experience of a person—usually, but not always, a man—calling up and asking for superior after superior, sometimes up an entire line of female managers, more than obviously looking for a man’s name. It happens in female-owned businesses constantly. Can I prove that’s what happened here? No. Is the stink of that all over that article? To me, it is.
Before we get to the charges of sexism (evidently based on smell), a bit of factual clarification: the CRS report Miss Alli cites is here and does not, unsurprisingly, tell us anything we don’t already know—nor does it do what Miss Alli thinks it does. Or rather, it does—insofar as she argues that it proves that Governor Blanco “acted appropriately to request assistance in a timely fashion to get help ahead of the arrival of Katrina”—but that has never been the knock on Blanco from her critics, because her breakdown in leadership occurred after the hurricane hit and had to do with maintaining order in the city, something that required additional troops that she did NOT request in a timely fashion, as she herself admits.
Similarly, Miss Alli’s insistence that the “national plans call for FEMA to take the lead in a situation like this,” is certainly true —if by “in a situation like this” she means a storm whose violence convinced both Blanco and the President to declare a state of emergency before it hit, setting into motion the federal response, which includes prepositioning certain resources, making assessments, managing assistance and getting it to the region within 72-96 hours as a followup to the first responders’ responsibilities under the local plan, and acting as the point man in the entirety of the second and third-stage relief efforts. Rescue efforts, however, are the province of the National Guard, which Blanco, as Governor, controlled. And of course, FEMA did preposition resources, request additional resources once the hurricane hit and a damage assessment was done, and, in conjunction with the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, have relief supplies available—though they were kept out by state agencies also under the control of Governor Blanco. All of which makes the CRS report moot.
Because what it doesn’t do is provide the President with extraconsitutional powers to override the authority of a Governor except under very specific circumstances (the Insurrection Act, for instance), nor does it circumvent Posse Comitatus unless the Governor cedes authority to federalize active duty troops, which she did not do.
But that is well-traveled ground at this point, and hardly needs repeating, except as a reminder that many of the arguments we keep hearing for affixing blame on FEMA are based on a complete misunderstanding of what FEMA is and does, and how it is simply one actor in a larger plan that incorporates, in its early stages, the local and state responses—which is where order initially broke down.
Miss Alli goes on to write:
Here’s the (registration required) original Times article. Note that it strongly suggests a situation where part of the problem was… wait for it…
PUTTING A GUY IN CHARGE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT WHO DOESN’T KNOW A FREAKING THING ABOUT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT. Of course he doesn’t have any idea who’s supposed to do what. He doesn’t know what to do. And why not? Because his last job was working on horse shows.
Read that article and imagine how an experienced emergency manager—James Lee Witt, for instance—might have handled the situation just a little bit differently. It’s also fascinating how nobody else on earth seems to remember anything happening the way Brown says it happened.
Jerk.
Well, first of all, Brown had handled four major hurricanes leading up to Katrina, which means that he did have experience—and from all accounts performed quite as he was supposed to (in fact, FEMA was criticized for moving too fast)—so unless we’re willing to say that his experience doesn’t include his on-the-job history of emergency management, the charge is a total canard.
Second, James Lee Witt, who Miss Alli so passionately extols, was himself a patronage appointee who experienced problems similar to Brown’s during Hurricane Floyd—something many on left find it convenient to forget in their efforts to bash the Bushies for cronyism.
But from where I’m standing, the silliest charge of all—and the one that occasioned this post—is the suggestion that sexism played a role in any of this. In response to Brown’s admission that he turned to Blanco’s husband when he couldn’t get through to her, Miss Alli writes, “Isn’t that charming? He dealt with her husband. When, do you suppose, was the last time he went around a male governor to the male governor’s wife? Do these guys even hear themselves? Do they hear what a bunch of patronizing jackasses they sound like?”
Actually? No. No I don’t.
Now perhaps this is the result of my not being as attuned to sexism as others are (and that’s quite possible, given some recent responses I’ve received here and elsewhere), but from my perspective, I think it’s just as justifiable to assume Brown was reaching out to someone he thought Blanco trusted to try to get through to her, because clearly he wasn’t able to do so himself.
Does this suggest a bit of panic on Brown’s part? Absolutely. But it was not an unjustified panic, as law enforcement was breaking down, aid was blocked from getting to the Superdome evacuees, and the Governor was doggedly maintaining her sovereignty even as she had no idea how best to use it.
Further, it is worth looking at the “gendered” aspect of Miss Alli’s complaint from the inverse: imagine, for the sake of argument, that Governor Blanco was a man and was as intractable as the actual Governor Blanco appears to have been in this case. Would Miss Alli have been equally upset with Brown if he had tried to appeal to the wife of our hypothetical male Governor Blanco to try to get the Governor to listen? Or would she have insisted that such an outreach in that scenario was likewise sexist?
Simlarly, if Brown hadn’t appealed to this hypothetical wife, even though he thought it might do some good and help impress upon our hypothetical male Governor the need to make quick decisions or risk the situation deteriorating rapidly into the anarchy we all witnessed—and it turns out he didn’t do so because he thought turning to a spouse was (as Miss Alli suggests) “patronizing”—does anyone believe Miss Alli wouldn’t be accusing Brown of refusing to talk to our hypothetical male Governor’s spouse because she was a woman?
So which is it? Is it right or wrong to turn to a trusted confidant of the person in power if you think it might help save lives and minimize damage?
If it’s right, then Brown is clearly not sexist for having done so. If it’s wrong, then it’s wrong regardless of sex and should be criticized on those grounds. But what it is clearly not is sexist. In fact, the only thing sexist here, so far as I can tell, is the inflammatory charge itself.
So tell me: WHY ARE YOU SO SEXIST, MISS ALLI? DON’T YOU KNOW THAT SEXISM KILLS?
Again: Brown has been made a scapegoat in all this. And history will show that his biggest failure is that communications breakdowns and the Governor’s dithering leadership led to the brief civil chaos in NOLA. But the biggest contributor was the storm itself—something we should not forget in our continued efforts to point the finger of blame.
****
(h/t Lisa, Michele C, Allah, and Robb)
Man, what an uninformed bimbo!
You’re on Hubris‘ list, Wes! And look for a thrashing from Ilyka, too.
Women must be treated equally. And the best way to do that is ot treat them differently and more carefully in matters of argumentation.
In fact, no established rules of narrative distance or irony need apply. Women are far too fragile.
Well, Mr. Male Blogger, don’t you think Miss Allie has a constitutional and inalienable right to speak up against sexism whenever she perceives and imagines it? Doesn’t Cindy Sheehan have absolute moral authority to denounce the US military occupation of NO, since her son was killed there? Shouldn’t Senatress Landrieu be able to threaten to deck the Prez and defend the corrupt interests of her homestate as any man might do (though not on record)? And do you think it merely coincidence that the biggest killer hurricane under Bush was named for a woman, so that men like you would “point the finger of blame” at her?
That isn’t what I said, Jeff, but if you want to pretend it is then go for it. Face off against arguments I haven’t made; it would probably be more interesting anyway.
I spent twelve years as an executive headhunter and on numerous occasions I’ve proactively spoken to the wife of a male candidate (or husband of a female candidate) to close the deal. The fee was big, so it was important, so I did it. I suspect that Brown thought that this was really, really important, so I just don’t get what Miss Allie’s talking about. Unless she just wants to complain about overly presumptuous people in general.
Well, anyone who knew squat about Louisiana politics would know that Blanco’s husband, Raymond, has been involved in LA political and economic matters for decades. The man’s got connections.
In fact, he and his wife got started politically when they helped then unknown J. Bennett Johnston get elected governor in the early 1970s.
So, it would have been dumb not to consult with him on arranging disaster relief.
SMG
Does she really think that back in Arkansas when her man Bill was the Gov. that nobody talked to Hillary or that people in Califonia are not asking Maria to speak with Arnold? Give me a break
So once again, Blanco’s little shills descend to outright lying.
Blanco’s husband was active in the post-Katrina effort. He himself flew to Jefferson parish to meet with Broussard, he met Bush at the airport and flew to the Iwo Jima with him. His background is in construction, so perhaps he knows a thing or two.
Apparently, Gov Blanco forgot to tell him not to worry his pretty little head about this hurricane thing. Of course, if she wants to humiliate herself by allowing her husband to spring into action with his sexist display of competence, that is up to her.
But FEMA should have known to deal only with the person in full break-down mode. On account of the sexism.
Blanco and her staff were disorganized and the situation was “out of control.â€Â
I prefer to think of it as ‘overcome by empathy’…
I posted this on Miss Alli’s site – since I extend Jeff’s arguments a bit, I’ll post it here:
—-
– The point {about James Lee Witt) being {a patronage hire is} that there were other, more qualified people to run FEMA than Witt.
They weren’t appointed because Witt and Clinton had a long history together.
So, James Lee Witt was a patronage appointee of Clinton’s to the Arkansas job, but James Lee Witt happened to be worth most of a damn.
Though the far left was not too enamored of Mr. Witt because James Lee never met a nuke melt-down evacuation plan that he couldn’t approve. {that’s from CounterPunch}
And the Libertarian ‘right’ freaked out over Clinton’s and Witt’s preemptive evacuation of the East Coast. Though, *obviously* neither Clinton or Witt ordered any such evacuation … the governors of those states did. That’s what governors do.
Admittedly, Clinton looked worried and he chose not to leave for a golf vacation. Witt was present as well. ‘Course, Witt had, like, half of the stuff on his plate that Brown(ie) did because several airliners had not done controlled flights into large buildings on a single day so FEMA was free to concentrate more on about Forest Fires, Tornadoes, Floods, and Hurricanes almost exclusively.
As for the bona fides of Mr. Brown, Jeff pointed out that Brown(ie) had been on-station for a previous hurricane season and FEMA acquitted itself quite well. {insert – Florida/election year tinfoil hat theories for possible reasons}.
Also, you could look to the credentials of the people hired by ‘The Bush Administration’ to FEMA’s tactical positions regarding disaster preparedness and disaster response … n’ah … let’s not.
As a side note: I don’t ‘get’ the *constant* desire by the Left for ‘Dear Leader’ to show up and make things all better. Y’all act like fascist wanna-be’s looking for someone to face and pledge your troth. Which explains Dean, but I digress.
… and, at the same time you could, I dunno, maybe take a peek at Louisiana’s hires to tactical positions of control.
If you need proof of the in-place, tested, broad (in the non-sexist sense) sweeping (again, non-sexist) powers of the Governor in a time of crisis, then look no further the Gov. Blanco’s Executive orders the week following Landfall.
Btw – a pet peeve of mine are dumbass reality-based folk that think that 2 hours after landfall the 82nd Airborne should be delivering Swanson TV dinners, hot, to the folks that couldn’t evacuate. You’re reality-based, people. Look out a window – that’s a big mutha (again, non-sexist) hurricane.
What’s striking, to me, is that Blanco’s order was for outlying school districts to prepare lists of buses and send the list in. Not send actual buses, but prepare lists of buses and send those in.
Ummmmmm ………
fwiw – Governor Blanco also asked that a peace officer be sent along on the bus.
That’d help – sure.
‘course a bus would have had to actually, been, you know, sent.
What’s galling is that the very same ‘sexism’ charge being brought against Brown(ie) would have been levelled at 10x the intensity if Brown, or Bush, had said ‘This Governor’s incompetent – there is no unified chain of command for resource deployment, I have personaly observed that the Governor does not understand the role of the State’s chief executive in disaster response, as such the Federal Government is taking over’ {note the lack of gender speech in that hypothetical} ..
Brown(ie) would have excoriated far worse that what he’s getting now.
The deaths from Katrina up through 12 hours after landfall are a terrible thing – but they’re not the fault of FEMA.
FEMA’s fault, if any, is that they didn’t proactively recognize that this particular woman was no good in a stress situations – too emotional – in the televised words of one Louisiana citizen “I’ve got a mom,
I need a Governor”
But, judging from this quote of yours:
~~ Every woman in a position of any authority has had the experience of a person—usually, but not always, a man—calling up and asking for superior after superior, sometimes up an entire line of female managers, more than obviously looking for a man’s name. It happens in female-owned businesses constantly ~~
I can certainly understand your point.
So, what about that Louisiana female-owned business called ‘The Executive Branch’?
Jeff’s just a Jew, Hubris. He gets to say things like that.
Nonsense, Hubris. How could anything be more interesting than spending a couple days defending myself on my own blog against accusations that I’m sexist?
No. That’s just too much fun. Can’t be topped.
In fact, can we please go back to doing that? You start: Tell me again that I’m a sexist—perhaps an unconscious one, but a sexist nonetheless, quite insensitive to the travails of being a woman—so I can go back to denying it over and over again in the wake of your incessant protests to the contrary (which are so helpfully peppered with frequent reminders that I’m a Jew, and that I have, in the past, not enjoyed anti-semitic attacks. Because anti-semitic attacks from actual anti-semites? The same thing as having a Shannon Elizabeth bimbo character make a crack about someone else being more uninformed than she is).
Please. Do it. I beseeeeeeeeech you.
YOU OWE ME ANOTHER SARCASM DETECTOR, JEFF! Ye blew mine to pieces with that last post!
Turing word “likely” as in: “It’s SO likely he’s gonna buy me another one.”
Sigh. I never said that the first time. Read back over my comments.
Seriously, is this how it plays out in your head?
And OHNOES, aside from this dispute, I will continue to acknowledge that Jeff is extremely intelligent and a talented writer; you, on the other hand, just a fucking moron. Really. No sarcasm here.
No thanks. I read your comments over on your site. I got the message.
You know what? I like you, Hubris. I find you funny and insightful and I enjoy your site. So I’m bowing out of this conversation.
No hard feelings on my end.
Just a friendly reminder:
A large chunk of prime-time television—a form of mass media consumed far more broadly than blogs—routinely portrays men as buffoons who would drown in their own spit if women (usually their wives) were not there to remind them to swallow.
Had Jeff appropriated one of the hapless TV husbands—or someone like David Hasselhoff—to mock the intellect of a male blogger, I suspect it would have passed largely unnoticed.
(Snipped backhanded compliment of Jeff for what really matters)
Pfft, you’re just being capitalized name-ist.
The only sexism I see in Miss Alli’s post is her own. Mike Brown went to see the Governor’s spouse, not his/her wife/husband. In politics (especially so in the Democratic party), marriages are sometimes a convenient means to join power blocs together. The spouse is an acceptable, if informal and extreme means, of connecting with the leader. It doesn’t matter what the sex of the spouse is.
In short, Miss Alli is projecting something serious.
Remember the vice-president on last season’s ‘24’? He became president during a crisis, yet was vain, indecisive, grasping power yet afraid to exercise it, worried about what everyone would think and afraid of his own shadow. Hello, Governor Blanco.
Brown dealt with her husband because she was acting like a hysterical woman. In this crisis, Louisiana needed a Maggie Thatcher, not a saggy bitcher.
And Ray ‘Not Guliani’ Nagin wasn’t much better:
“My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out. I don’t know. If the CIA slips me something and next week you don’t see me, you’ll all know what happened.”
That’s Nagin’s idea of centered thinking? It sounds like Hugo Chavez to me.
And let’s not forget those dens of thieves we laughingly refer to as ‘Levee Boards’:
Rich Lowry: “Former president of the board Billy Nungesser, who was ousted after trying to reform it, says: “Every time I turned over a rock, there was something rotten. I used to tell people, ‘If your children ever die in a hurricane, come shoot us, because we’re responsible.’ We threw away all sorts of money.”
The board operates an airport, two marinas, and has a private police force that Nungesser says “wears more gold braid than Gen. MacArthur when he went to the Philippines.” The board just spent $2.4 million on a Mardi Gras Fountain near Lake Pontchartrain. NBC News reports that the board spent $15 million on building overpasses to a riverboat casino, and paid $45,000 to a private investigator to find dirt on a board critic  followed by another $45,000 to settle the resulting lawsuit.”
All that said, I’m proud of the response of Americans and others to this disaster. New Orleans can, should and will be rebuilt…with adult supervision.
Maybe Brown should have called her mother. Or better yet, her father.
And while I deeply appreciate both the quality and the quantity of the exegetical explication and rhetorical elucidation, a quandry, nay, cognitive perplexity doth manifest itself most keenly:
How about another Red Pills!??!! Do you not underSTAND the deep and abiding consuetude reading these extravagant missives has become?
Ameliorate my suffering, oh bard of the blogosphere!
{{weeping abjectly, with savage histrionics}}
Bumperstickerist, I think Alli dumped your comments to the memory hole.
For historical preservation purposes, here’s what I posted on Alli’s site. (So far, it’s still there).