What Hearing Were You Watching?

This is interesting. Both broadcast coverage and this WaPo article present Michael Brown as spending all his time before Congress yesterday as trying to shift the blame for what went wrong during Katrina. But if you watch broadcast coverage, he's presented as arguing the blame falls squarely with Blanco and Nagin. This WaPo article suggests he was far more willing to attack the administration and far more willing to discuss the shift in priorities from natural disasters to terrorism as a mistake. (That's almost completely missing from the broadcast coverage, cable and traditional networks.) If nothing else that's certainly relevant given complaints that he's still on the payroll for some nefarious purposes.

Other interesting notes: yesterday the television coverage included clips from the questioning of Mississippi Democrat Gene Taylor as well as Republican Chris Shays. If you got your news of the hearing from television, no other member of Congress needed to bother showing up: it was a three-man show. This morning, Taylor's clips seem to have gotten lost, although I haven't yet rotated through every network. Also this morning, it's Shays who is in demand for interviews.

Second observation: Brown is a terrible advocate for himself. Look, the guy is no doubt starting in a pretty deep hole, and at some level once the media has put on the frame of "shifting blame" he can't really win. Even when he's right (and, look, the simple truth is that on some of these arguments he is right: some of these problems were not FEMA's responsibility) in arguing that some of the problems were the fault of other actors, once the press labels that as "shifting blame," he's lost. Because rhetorically then he isn't correcting the record, he's trying to get out from under responsibility. But that said, he's just not particularly deft. Take as a given that he's confronting an especially difficult rhetorical challenge, he isn't particularly gifted, either in terms of the way he phrases his responses or in the way he performs them -- the man just seems incapable of not appearing petulant, which ain't the way you want to appear before Congress. (Or, for that matter, on TV.)

Beyond that, Shays makes a rhetorical pincer move that Brown seems utterly unable to deal with. When Brown explains that Nagin and Blanco seemed unable to work together and weren't doing even the minimum necessary -- like, say, declaring a mandatory evacuation -- things that are absolutely the state and local responsibility, and that there are limits to the fed's powers and therefore the feds reach to help he asks, somewhat plaintively, what is it you wanted me to do? Shays responds, I wanted you to coordinate.

But Shays then redefines "coordinate" as "pick up the slack for anything the states and locals didn't or couldn't get right."

The problem is that even if you could wave a magic federalism wand and make that FEMA's charge, you can't just overcome the laws of physics. Brown is right about that (although he's barely articulating this.) So, the city blows it on evacuation and puts thousands of people in the Superdome without food or water. The evacuation was their responsibility, but since they blew it Shays wants to redefine "coordinate" as "fix."

All well and good, but that doesn't change the fact that -- even if you assume absolutely perfect distribution systems with no redtape or bureaucratic delays of any kind -- all federal supplies, personnel, and equipment will still have been staged outside the storm area to ensure they weren't destroyed. Which means they now need to be moved in over flooded roads, destroyed or insecure bridges and so on and so on and so on. (And it doesn't change the laws requiring the Governor to invite in active duty military forces.)

I really, really like Chris Shays, but he had a witness in a very tough rhetorical situation and made it an impossible rhetorical situation. And, as I say, this is clearly not a witness well-suited to rhetorical challenges. So now you've nailed Brown. But have you learned anything relevant to future hurricanes or disasters?

Please don't misunderstand: I'm not meaning to defend Michael Brown qua Michael Brown or suggest he was the ultimate FEMA Director, or was doing a superb job, or anything like that.

I'm suggesting that every time he tries to explain that some of what went wrong was not on his head, the press has all the grounds they need to make it look as if this is the move of a drowning man grabbing for anything available to hold onto (even though in interviews Shays readily concedes Brown should not be made a scapegoat when there's more than enough blame to be handed out at the state and local level.)

One last note: every interview Shays has done the repoters have asked him, if you could get Nagin and Blanco up there, what would you ask, a wording which implies he isn't going to get the chance, but this hasn't been explained.

Are they not being called before this committee? If not, why not? And if not, why isn't this being addressed head on by the press? It seems that those two are at least as central to understanding what went wrong in New Orleans as Brown, yes?

Comments

[Nate]

This administration has demonstrated little concern for state's rights in many of its other actions...No Child Left Behind, etc... but "Brownie" wants us to accept that he was blocked and delayed by "dysfunctional" Louisana. Give me a break!! If the federal government was prepared and ready to help, then Bush would have been at NORAD, not on vacation. Cheney would have been in DC and not trying to buy a vacation house. Congress would have been doing something, like passing clean up legislation requiring a CFO and CEO for the reconstruction funds. I could think of 100 other things. In the end, the feds got caught with their pants down and now we have to pay for it. Brownie can scream and yell at Christopher Shays all he wants. Both of them are guilty as hell. Both of them will eventually be the reason money is taken out of my pocket through taxes or valuble services are cut.

[Porkopolis]

On having Naggin/Blanco testify:

That is an extremely insightful and key question because the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana broke their agreement with FEMA and suffered from self-inflicted wounds.

[Davod]

Shays is a blow hard. I wonder if he realised that suggesting that Gulliani would be better at the job leads him down the wrong path. Guliani was mayor of NYC at the time of 9/11.

Nate. Relax and smell the roses. You are letting your hate of Bush/Chaney get in the way of logic.

[Davod]

Shays is a blow hard. I wonder if he realised that suggesting that Gulliani would be better at the job leads him down the wrong path. Guliani was mayor of NYC at the time of 9/11.

Nate. Relax and smell the roses. You are letting your hate of Bush/Chaney get in the way of logic.

[Nate]

Yep Davod clearly it is "my hatred of Bush and Cheney" that is affecting my logic. If you were capable of reading carefully, then you would note that I indicted the entire federal goverment, from Chris Shays and congress to Brownie and up the Executive Branch. See the problem with discerning someone's logic requires that you read what they say. In addition, I would say I am happy to see Bush supporters so touchy and defensive. When one is incapable of defending the actions of people they support, the response is always to attack those that would critcize them, with logic and rhetoric being the targets for attack