Brown has resigned. It means little

Brown has resigned. It means little
by kos
Mon Sep 12th, 2005 at 12:18:38 PDT
So Brown has quit as FEMA chief. Yeay. I'd rather see him criminally indicted. But this is a start.

It's important to root out the incompetents who aggravated this disaster -- the people running the show and those who nominated and approved of them (like Bush and Lieberman). There must be accountability for the disaster, and that accountability must transcend political lines. D or R, we shouldn't care. What's important is to ensure that those at fault suffer the consequences.

But we can't allow this disaster to be framed in the context of a few incompetents and political hacks. Because ultimately, the federal (non) response to New Orleans went exactly according to the conservative playbook. And that's the biggest point in this whole mess.

Conservatives believe government shouldn't exist to help people. That everyone should be left to the wolves.

New Orleans demonstrated to us in vivid color what Republicanism is made of. New Orleans was, in reality, a crowning acheivement of conservatism. That is, until political pressure forced the federal government to lend a hand and those lucky duckies in the gulf coast began receiving "handouts".

While fingering the responsible is important, Democrats need to use New Orleans to draw clear distinctions between the governing philosophies of the Republicans and that of the Democrats.

Democrats would've taken care of Katrina victims from the get go. That would've been our first impulse, our first instinct. Republicans had to be shamed into helping people.