"Blame gaming" is the Republican talking point of the day. Whenever you hear someone use the phrase over the next couple of days, you can be sure they are nothing more than a partisan hack. Thankfully, 61% of Americans disapprove of the president's job performance right now. That leaves the predictable 30% or so that are die-hard right-wing zealots. You'll never convince those people of anything because they are emotionally wedded to Team Republican. In other words, everyone who CAN be convinced IS now convinced. America is waking up.

Perhaps we should start bugging Michael the Oregonian apologist--er, public editor--and remind him about how many times Reinhard parrots the Rove talking points. Not that he has any clout. Maybe it should go to the publisher, or Pete Bahtia, or Bob Caldwell.

The Oregonian should run a conservative columnist or two, but must they be so predictable and banal? I mean, how is Reinhard earning his salary? He isn't that great a writer, so essentially, he is rewriting someone else's script, and not doing that well at it. There are some conservatives who actually show an independent mind (Debra Saunders, David Brooks at times, well, I'm sure there are some others).

Come to think of it, we also ought to bug the O about their predictable, party-line Democratic liberal columnist. The editors could send David Sarasohn on a long tour of interesting restaurants and let someone else write the kind of funny left wing column. Someone else like, uh, me.

It is interesting to me that Bush supporters try to lay the blame for the inadequate disaster response at the feet of local and state officials.

In January 2005 the Department of Homeland Security released a "National Response Plan," [NRP] which is described on the DHS web site as a "unified, all-discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management" seamlessly covering prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.

The NRP defines"incidents of national significance." These are "high-impact, low-probability incidents, including natural disasters and terrorist attacks that result in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions."

An online brochure at the DHS web site says that under the NRP, the federal government is supposed to have the capabilty to intervene immediately, not days after a disaster: "The NRP provides the policies and processes for coordinating Federal support activities that address the short-term, direct effects of an incident. These activities include immediate actions to preserve life, property, and the environment; meet basic human needs; and maintain the social, economic, and political structure of the affected community." http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_Brochure.pdf

In addition, "for those events that rise to the level of an Incident of National Significance, DHS provides operational and/or resource coordination for Federal support to on-scene incident command structures. The NRP provides mechanisms for expedited and proactive Federal support to ensure critical life-saving assistance and incident containment capabilities are in place to respond quickly and efficiently to catastrophic incidents."

Note the terms "expedited," "proactive," "life-saving," "short-term," "direct," and "immediate." Note the mission to meet "basic human needs," and the emphasis on maintaining the "structure" of the community. These aren't Bush critics talking here. This is the official disaster plan of the Department of Homeland Security.

The NRP says that there are a variety of conditions under which the federal government can activate the National Response Plan. These include at the request of a federal agency, when state and local resources have been overwhelmed and assistance is requested, when more than one federal agency in substantially involved in an incident, or when "the Secretary has been directed to assume incident management responsibilities by the president."

The plan specifically says that "If the president determines that an emergency exists where the primary responsibility for response rests with the Government of the United States . . . the president may unilaterally direct the provision of assistance under the act, and will, if practicable, consult with the governor of the state." Note that the president doesn't have to wait for a request, or ask permission. He only "consults" "if practicable."

At any time the president can hand over responsibility for incident response to DHS. And in the event of an incident of national significance DHS is supposed to provide immediate, life-saving relief that preserves the structure of the community.

Hurricane Katrina is an example of the very situation the National Response Plan is supposed to cover. If the Bush apologists don't like the local and state responses to the hurricane, the question to ask is why DHS didn't take over command of the incident from the very start. We're talking about a storm that had to power to virtually wipe a major American city (through which a significant percentage of the nation's energy flows) off the map, in addition to wiping out another 100 miles of coastal towns. If that's not an incident of national significance, then what is? If the feds aren't going to use their own plan, then why even have it?

You can read the National Response Plan here: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf

I guess the above means that people are still reading David Reinhard's columns. Since they appear to be reasonably intelligent, I'll presume they are new to his columns and haven't yet realized how predictable his drivel is.

While Rove is working on the blame game and trying to divert attention from the White House by sticking it to state and local officials, a word of caution is in order. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long history of corruption and tolerance for corrupt officials so people should be careful about blindly rushing to their defense. There was a recent story in the Washington Post, probably prompted by Rove's gang, about Senator Landrieu working to get some pork for work on a canal instead of maintaining the levees. There are probably other examples in the pork barrel where money was spent on questionable projects instead of on the levees.

As for those who would blame people for building New Orleans below sea level they should recognize that that is not the real problem. About one third of the Netherlands (Holland) is below sea level and has been that way for centuries. The difference is that the Dutch and their government have a sense of national responsibility that is lacking in these United? States. (Incidentally, I asked some Dutch people several years ago about the story of the little boy sticking his finger in the dyke, and they replied they had never heard of it.)

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"I guess the above means that people are still reading David Reinhard's columns."

Rather, I guess it means people are still paying subscriber money to, and patronizing stores that spend advertising dollars in, the newspaper that is passing that money to pay the propagandist's paycheck.

Like the whole money trail is all some incidental accident nobody noticed was happening as they passed the dollars along.

No. It ain't 'them,' it is us. It ain't what we're reading, it's what we're buying.

We, the people, actually truly really have kept him there and can kick him out. Instead of kvetching and complaining and blaming him for 'fooling' everyone, hoping that someone somewhere -- but, Oh!, not us, personally, not a sacrifice for us in our own life, will DO something or that -- hope against hope -- somehow by pointing out the obvious it is going to pop some bubble of deception, lift some cloud of confusion which all the managers and the perp himself had missed somehow, which had plum escaped them, and upon popping it or lifting it suddenly they see the error of their ways and fix it and behave rightly ever after, que sera sera -- instead of all that pass-the-buck irresponsibility, when we mean to mean what we say, and mean what we believe, and mean what we say we believe: Just. BOYCOTT.

Don't buy that newspaper. Don't shop those advertisers. Call the advertisers and tell them. Call the newspaper and cancel the subscription. Two calls, ten minutes. Pop the pimple, change the world. Why change it? Because it is the only one world we have to live our only life in.

When we want to be real and taken seriously. BOYCOTT The Oregonian and BOYCOTT its advertisers.

Otherwise, as Reinhard has said: "Ha, ha, ha. Name-calling doesn't bother me. You can't DO a thing to touch me." Call him sometime, and speak the charges to him directly, and you too can hear him say it.

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Good points, Tenskwatawa, but we need to get the responsible stuff the newspapers do report, such as the story about the Republican now heading for the slammer and Karen Minnis and the other shenanigans going on in Salem. To be fair, there are good reporters working for the Oregonian as long as company editors don't rewrite their material, and Uncle Edgester does help to inject a little needed levity. In Central Oregon we would be worse off if we only had the local paper here. I tangled with Reinhard by e-mail a few weeks ago after I made the mistake of reading one of his columns. I may as well have written to a tree stump.

I'd stop getting the Oregonian if there was good rival daily in town. When I was a kid we still had the Oregon Journal. Unfortunately, Newhouse bought out the Journal in the early sixties, and shut it down in the early eighties.

Too bad the Trib is dying a slow death. I was hoping they could get enough advertising to go to three times a week, then eventually daily.

As for Reinhard, I used to read him until it became clear that he didn't have anything intelligent or informative to say. I pretty much ignore him these days.

I hope Reinhard will never have to write a column defending the performance of our "Brownie" <a href=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002484649_pennington10m.html Looks like the same rigorous vetting process in action here.

<h2>I believe that the title of this post was actually a Jon Stewart line last week.</h2>