The Blame Game

This from Rich Galen, courtesy of the Federalist:


The Culture of Blame—on assigning blame for Hurricane Katrina: "Let me make this clear: Everything which has happened as the result of Hurricane Katrina is my fault. Mine. Alone. No one else's. Stop wasting energy pointing fingers and put your hands to work helping out. It was me. Got it? I was a United States Senator from Louisiana in 2001 when the levee at Lake Pontchartrain was declared unsafe and I didn't have enough clout with my Senatorial brethren to get sufficient money appropriated to fix it. It was my fault. Oh. I almost forgot. I was the Commander-in-Chief of all United States Armed Forces in the 1960s which includes the Corps of Engineers. The cost-benefit analysis? My fault. It is my fault that, as the Governor of Louisiana, I didn't foresee the need to have enough Louisiana National Guard troops—the vast majority of whom are NOT currently in Iraq, or Afghanistan or, for that matter, Indiana—pre-positioned and ready to preserve order. I, frankly, forgot that there is a portion of the population which will steal anything from anyone given any opportunity and then will blame it on me because I didn't—in spite of ample warnings by sociologists from large Eastern Universities—foresee the need to have 27" flat-screen television sets available to every family in the New Orleans city limits as soon as the electricity went out. That one WAS my bad. It is my fault that, as Mayor of New Orleans, I was boogying down Bourbon Street the night before the hurricane hit rather than being where I should have been—on the roof of the Superdome pounding in extra nails to hold the roof on. As the architect of the Superdome, it was my fault for claiming that the Dome could survive 200 mile-per-hour winds. It couldn't even handle a relatively gentle 160 mile-per-hour zephyr. Strap me to my drafting table and set me adrift. Global warming? My fault. Despite the fact that nearly every serious climatologist in America has stated over and over again that there is no clear evidence tying human-generated greenhouse gasses to global warming, and even if there were, there is no evidence tying global warming to hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, I was opposed to the Kyoto treaty and so it is my fault. It is also my fault that during the administration of Bill Clinton the U.S. Senate rejected the terms of the Kyoto protocols by a vote of 95-0. That would be zero, zilch, nada, nil, bupkis. As the Grand Poohbah in Charge of all TV Coverage, it is my fault that there is constant video of looters and almost none of humanitarian activities. I am the person who issued the statement: 'No more rescue footage UNLESS the person rescued complains about how long they had to wait or, if he shoots at the rescuers.' And, finally, as Chairman of the National Association of Gasoline Producers it is my fault that I had the bad judgment to put so much of my drilling, refining and transportation assets in a hurricane-prone area like the Caribbean basin. What...was...I...thinking? If I could re-do that whole thing, I would have put all that equipment in Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. There may not be any oil there, but hurricanes are very rare. So. There you have it. Everything that has happened is my fault. Now. Shut up and help."—Rich Galen