The Politics of Natural Disasters

Like everyone else who watched the disaster of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television, I was shocked and saddened by what I saw. Though by no means the most important aspect of the story, the part that puzzled me the most was the White House's political response, both before and after the enormity of the crisis became apparent. I was struck by how incredibly unprepared the White House was to deal with the politics of a major hurricane, clearly the most predictable of all potential natural disasters. I'm not talking about evacuation plans, or FEMA's response time, or decisions regarding the deployment of military assets (although there's plenty to be puzzled about there too). What I'm talking about is the pure politics of tragedy: the reassuring speeches, the showing of empathy, the demonstration of resolve and strong leadership, and most of all, the message that the President understands the seriousness of the situation. To my surprise, Bush failed rather spectacularly on all these counts.

I remember watching CNN the night before Katrina made landfall. At the time, Katrina was an enormous category 5 hurricane headed straight for downtown New Orleans. The meteorologists from the National Hurricane Center were saying that Katrina would likely be the largest, most destructive hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, and it was bearing down on American's most vulnerable city. A professor from LSU told Aaron Brown that there was a 50% probability that the city of New Orleans would be rendered entirely uninhabitable by the hurricane. I'd always heard that New Orleans was particularly vulnerable to a disaster of this sort; I'd even seen a few documentaries on the subject. But still, hearing that a major U.S. city was facing the possibility (perhaps probability) of total destruction within the next 24 to 48 hours was chilling. It's hard to think of a more serious situation or a more imminent threat to our homeland.

Yet the gravity of the potential catastrophe did not seem to register with the President and his staff. The President's schedule was not changed in any way. The President remained in Crawford, Texas, and his staff planned a series of minor political events for him in the coming days. No one apparently gave much thought to what the President would do or say in the event that Katrina really did level the city of New Orleans. Even after the hurricane struck, Bush and his advisors kept his previous schedule. They allowed the President to pose for a number politically ill-advised photo-ops, even as New Orleanians were huddled in the Superdome or fleeing flood waters. And in his initial public statements on the disaster, the President seemed oddly detached from the reality and seriousness of the situation. In short, he seemed entirely out-of-touch. As Newsweek put it:

"How this could be--how the president of the
United States could have even less 'situational
awareness,' as they say in the military, than the
average American about the worst natural disaster
in a century--is one of the more perplexing and
troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments
of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a
national disgrace."

Eventually, of course, the White House snapped out of its malaise and went into full-time political damage control. They soon discovered, however, that their usual strategies for deflecting criticism were more suited to a foreign war than a domestic natural disaster. For instance, the 'Iraq strategy'--i.e., insisting that everything is going well and relying on a certain level of deference from the news media--quickly backfired. Unlike Iraq, reporters were on the front lines in New Orleans and knew first-hand just how bad the situation was. To their credit, these field reporters (even those from FoxNews) openly challenged the self-congratulatory statements of government officials and the fact-spinning of partisan pundits. With hundreds of reporters on the scene and news footage coming in 24 hours a day, there was simply no way for the White House and its surrogates to spin the facts on the ground.

And because this was a natural disaster and not the result of an enemy attack, the White House and its surrogates were also deprived of their most reliable counter-attack strategy--accusing critics of being unpatriotic appeasers of the enemy (who don't support our troops).

Unable to spin the facts on the ground or to marginalize its critics, the White House stooped to even more pathetic and incoherent forms of damage control. As E.J. Dionne pointed out, the White House adopted the transparently hypocritical strategy of chastising those who engaged in "finger-pointing" and "blame-gaming" during a time of tragedy, while at the same time frantically casting blame and pointing the finger at state and local officials, many of whom were Democrats. These officials certainly deserve their share of the blame, but it was nevertheless appalling to see the White House resort to such incoherent and childish talking points at a time when what we so desperately needed was strong federal leadership.

The Bush administration has a long track record of incompetence both in choosing which policies to pursue and in executing those policies. Until now, however, I never really doubted their political competence. I'm now beginning to think I vastly over-estimated the political acumen of Bush and his team of advisors.

Update: Apparently Karl Rove was sidelined last week with a case of kidney stones. If his absence in any way explains Bush's political missteps over the last two weeks, I may finally understand why Bush is so determined not to fire him.