"I take responsibility"

[Walkiry]

As many of you probably know, recently Mr. Bush came forward saying he was taking the blame for FEMA's craptacular performance (among others), and if you haven't heard, well, here's a link.

Some days ago, we had Mr. Annan claiming he also took responsibility for the rather large fraud involving the "food-for-oil" program in Iraq during Saddam's regime. Here's another of them things youngsters call links.

But are you really?

If you were really taking responsibility, Mr. Bush, we'd be looking at a new election in the US sometime in the next couple of months. If you really wanted to take blame for the mysterious disappearance of a few hundred million dollars, Mr. Annan, you probably should be in jail, and you most definitely shouldn't be still warming a chair in an office belonging to the UN.

In Spain, at least, the politicians have the decency of being obvious crooks, and don't pretend to take responsibility for anything, merely passing the bucket along and chopping off the head of the first hapless underling that makes the mistake of peeking out to see what's happening. When the Prestige oil tanker sank absolutely noone took the blame for anything, and a few months and a "comission" later we had a lot of poo covering the walls, but hell if we knew what the smeg actually happened (besides the obvious). There was a rather large fire recently in Guadalajara that ended up with a lot of burnt forest, and 11 dead firefighters; Rosario Arévalo, the woman in charge of the local coordination effort, was kicked out (it's not good to be an underling, you know), and that's all we ever heard after a healthy dose of poo-flinging at the congress; meanwhile, Spain is still being ravaged by fires.

Lip service? Plenty. Responsibility? Yeah right.

</angry rant>

[Minionman]

Even if it is sincere, its kind of too late in all of these cases for apologies to matter. Could use some more people who do these things right the first time, even though as we all know these things have never happened before (heavy sarcasm on last part).

[Lady Vashj]

Well, I suppose it beats blameswapping. If they were still blameswapping, they'd be so busy with that they'd never be able to accomplish anything meaningful.

[jahcs]

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at the White House.

"To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," he said. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

Taking responsibility for something and accepting blame are two different things. For example, a prisoner in jail kills another prisoner. Who is to blame? The killer. Who is responsible for letting it happen? The warden and his staff.

The report by the Independent Inquiry Committee, headed by Volcker, a former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, does not accuse Annan personally of wrongdoing but found that the "cumulative management performance" of the secretary-general fell short of the standard that the United Nations organization should strive to maintain."

"The report... does not accuse Annan personally..." Whether we think he's guilty or not the investigation hasn't pointed a finger at him (yet?). He is responsible for what happens on his watch, even if he's not directly to blame.

[Occhidiangela]

Recently Mr. Bush came forward saying he was taking the blame for FEMA's craptacular performance (among others).

Some days ago, we had Mr. Annan claiming he also took responsibility [right][snapback]89175[/snapback][/right]

Empty words, pro forma, wastes of breath, going through the motions.

Occhi

[Walkiry]

Taking responsibility for something and accepting blame are two different things.
[right][snapback]89192[/snapback][/right]

Semantics games are boring and uninteresting, kinda like trying to take the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.

If you take responsibility for X, that means somewhere along the lines you did not perform as you should, and you should take the blame for your (in)action. There is such thing as negligence, and the fact that Mr. Annan didn't put the money in Saddam's bank account doesn't mean he's not to share his part of the blame for it happening. Ambulance chasers make millions off this.

But what really really riles me up is exactly what Occhi said:

Empty words, pro forma, wastes of breath, going through the motions.

I can just picture Kofi sitting on his warm comfortable chair, casually looking through the several hundred (thousand?) pages document with a vacant, uninterested look on his face, close it up at the end and say "Yeah, ok. My bad. So what? Get off my office, I'm a busy man" before dismissing whoever brough the document with a complacent wave of his hand.

[Ashock]

Semantics games are boring and uninteresting, kinda like trying to take the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.

If you take responsibility for X, that means somewhere along the lines you did not perform as you should, and you should take the blame for your (in)action. There is such thing as negligence, and the fact that Mr. Annan didn't put the money in Saddam's bank account doesn't mean he's not to share his part of the blame for it happening. Ambulance chasers make millions off this.

But what really really riles me up is exactly what Occhi said:
I can just picture Kofi sitting on his warm comfortable chair, casually looking through the several hundred (thousand?) pages document with a vacant, uninterested look on his face, close it up at the end and say "Yeah, ok. My bad. So what? Get off my office, I'm a busy man" before dismissing whoever brough the document with a complacent wave of his hand.
[right][snapback]89203[/snapback][/right]

Yeh, and then sharing a good laugh with his son about how gullible the West is.


-A

[kandrathe]

...the blame for FEMA's craptacular performance...
[right][snapback]89175[/snapback][/right]

I had to reply, in that you are reacting to the uninformed spew of the popular media.

FEMA has a role in prepositioning aid and preparing an organized response to a disaster, but it defers action to fill in for a local, or State failure or inadequacy. Obviously, each municipality, and the State of Louisiana entirely failed to prepare for a disaster on this magnitude. Kudos though, that State and local authorities eventually recognized the scale of the storm and implemented (however poorly) a full evacuation of parts of New Orleans.

I understood it that he was accepting responsibility for appointing a political crony to a post that required someone adept in planning for and managing a disaster response, or for not pre-positioning National Guard troops which required that the Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana to would have requested Federal military aid prior to Thursday morning. I think as the post mortem unfolds you will find culpability for the poor response more at the State and local levels, and failure at the Federal(FEMA) levels in the assumption that the localities had adequate plans AND the means to implement them. Much of this failure was in preparing for a post-distaster response, and the failure lies with the municipalities affected, the State of Louisiana, and FEMA. I notice we are not talking much about Mississippi, who was hit harder by the storm. Why?

[Lady Vashj]

So what you're saying is that it's the fault of everyone involved - at least the part that any human agency might have had any control over.

Makes sense.

[Walkiry]

I had to reply, in that you are reacting to the uninformed spew of the popular media.

[right][snapback]89211[/snapback][/right]

I'm responding to what Bush said: ""To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility." FEMA is the federal agency involved, he doesn't have to say anything about what the elected governor of the State said, did, or didn't do. FEMA's preparation was spotless, so spotless that it wasn't even there.

[jahcs]

So what you're saying is that it's the fault of everyone involved - at least the part that any human agency might have had any control over.

Makes sense.
[right][snapback]89218[/snapback][/right]

That's sort of what I was getting at with my "semantics game." Ultimate responsibility. Who's fault it was compared to who's accountable for what happened on their watch. I wasn't saying Mr. Bush was blameless. I wasn't saying the underlings were 100% at fault.

You call for the removal of Bush, by that reasoning then FEMA needs a gutting, whoever approved the appointment of current FEMA leadership needs the axe, the folks in charge of LA need to be removed, the leadership of NO needs to be run out of town, the Army Core of Engineers needs an overhaul...

As kandrathe says, there was failure at all levels and negligence at all levels. All levels of the chain should be held accountable.

[Walkiry]

As kandrathe says, there was failure at all levels and negligence at all levels.&nbsp; All levels of the chain should be held accountable.
[right][snapback]89232[/snapback][/right]

That's great. Go for it. I never said otherwise.

Now answer me this: How much accountability is Bush actually going to hold? We'll see some people leave their seats, some name calling, commitees, and whatever the hell you can dream off. Bush will still be sitting in his office pulling strings as he pleases until his four years are up.

He's not going to "pay a price," so to speak. Neither is Kofi. The fat cats never do.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Semantics games are boring and uninteresting[right][snapback]89203[/snapback][/right]

Only to people too immature to understand that there is more to any issue than black and white.

--Pete

[Walkiry]

Only to people too immature to understand that there is more to any issue than black and white.
[right][snapback]89235[/snapback][/right]

Hardly. Arguing if "blame" is the same as "responsibility" or not is quite different than asking just how much blame or responsibility should person X take. While jahcs was lost trying to point out what the concrete difference between the two is, he didn't realize I never claimed Bush or Kofi should take full responsibility for everything that happened, as his second response shows.

As I said, arguing semantics for the heck of it is boring and uninteresting. Putting things in the context of the discussion tends to make the difference.

[Ashock]

He's not going to "pay a price," so to speak. Neither is Kofi. The fat cats never do.
[right][snapback]89233[/snapback][/right]

You're right, the fat cats usually do not pay the price. However, in this case the Bush fat cat should not pay the price in the first place. It was mostly the fault of the local and state government, who did not get off their fat asses to do anything. Interestingly enough the mayor of NO not only got his family out to Dallas (or Houston), but also bought a house there.
There were 100s of school buses ready to be used for evacuation on Saturday, and no one ever used them!!! It is not the job of the federal government (at least in the US) to take care of individual cities. That is what the local and state government is for.


-A

[jahcs]

Never mind. I know when I'm trying to piss into the wind.

[Walkiry]

However, in this case the Bush fat cat should not pay the price in the first place.
[right][snapback]89240[/snapback][/right]

In that case he should spare us the demagogy and lip service if there really is nothing to be responsible of. Basically, "put up or shut up." Hearing big words and then the sound of crickets chirping when nothing happens is much more irritating than not hearing anything at all in the first place.

[Chaerophon]

However, in this case the Bush fat cat should not pay the price in the first place. It was mostly the fault of the local and state government, who did not get off their fat asses to do anything.

Have you read anything that Walkiry is saying? 'Mostly'? We ARE talking about degrees here. Does some responsibility ultimately lie with the federal executive? Yup. How much is a great question. Unfortunately, I don't think that it is the only factor that ought to be taken into account in determining 'which fat cats should pay'. One factor that is important to consider in attributing the validity of 'punishment' for responsibility is, in fact, the intent, or justification for one's actions that led to such an occurence. How many people died as a result of FEMA's failure may not be the sole issue in determining whether Bush deserves punishment for his part in the debacle. Bush does deserve some responsibility, and it may be that the REASONS for FEMA's failure are just as important in determining suitable punishment for those deaths. I, unlike you, will provide some reasons.

One of Bush's important jobs is to ensure that his appointments are made on the basis of qualification, and not cronyism. He is the last bastion against cronyism; his is the final and ultimate say, whether he is, in fact, a puppet, or not. When cronyism results in loss of life (which Bush's appointment of Michael Brown ultimately did), he has failed in one of his major duties as president - he thought of his friends before he thought of the people of the United States in making a major appointment, and many Americans died because of it. Whether ALL of their deaths are a result of his decision is not the issue. Some, I would say many, would have survived had FEMA been more adequately prepared, and the 'reasons' for those peoples deaths are not justifiable on the grounds that an 'accident' occurred or that a theoretical disposition turned out to be flawed in practice.

Government is a balancing act; it is very often true that governmental decisions can be rationalized in terms of a 'theoretical calculus' of loss of life (even in the case of things like tax law, e.g. we cut corporate tax rates to increase overall prosperity / trickle down will ultimately result in a greater benefit than loss to society). I would venture that one important way in which actions can be justified is on the basis of a projected benefit-to-loss ratio that takes into account, among other things, the value of a life, what makes a life valuable, and the relationship of a given option to a gain or loss in life. Of course, the veracity of such projections cannot be known prior to the imposition of a given policy. Nonetheless, when one has justified a given policy option (in this case, an appointment) by reference to its projected impact, and said action nonetheless results in loss of life, the person who is responsble for the failure might be at least partially excused on moral grounds, (if not necessarily practical ones) in that it was a failure of ideology, or some such thing and not an obvious, outright betrayal of trust (an action that did not justify itself on the basis of some such calculus would be, to my mind, a betrayal of trust on the part of government).

Bush's action in appointing Brown was not and could not be motivated by anything remotely resembling such a theoretical calculus (and now, unlike before, it is obvious), and the ultimate result was a significant loss of life. He took on the responsibility of running for the presidency, and people voted for him on the basis (among other things) of their belief that he was the best available candidate to be making such decisions on their behalf. It appears to me that he failed them, and that the reasons for his failure were not related to miscalulations or 'failures of ideology', but to his allegiance to a friend over his duty. That is why I believe that he deserves to be punished for his actions, whether or not, strictly speaking, he is to blame for all or even a majority of the deaths.

[kandrathe]

I'm responding to what Bush said: ""To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility." FEMA is the federal agency involved, he doesn't have to say anything about what the elected governor of the State said, did, or didn't do. FEMA's preparation was spotless, so spotless that it wasn't even there.
[right][snapback]89231[/snapback][/right]

No, you said "recently Mr. Bush came forward saying he was taking the blame for FEMA's craptacular performance ..."

Your paraphrasing was, to me, heavily biased by the media hype and not based on the facts.

[Walkiry]

No, you said "recently Mr. Bush came forward saying he was taking the blame for FEMA's craptacular performance ..."
[right][snapback]89250[/snapback][/right]

Yes, that is exactly what I said. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Bush: "To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

Clear enough for you now?

Your paraphrasing was, to me, heavily biased by the media hype and not based on the facts.

To me, you're reading too much into things. My post was full of hyperbole everywhere, not just with the FEMA remark. Just like I happily labeled all politicians in Spain as crooks, or with the poo flinging images.