Accountability Moment

As Billmon says, "round up the usual suspects".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will open a bipartisan investigation into what they described as an "immense failure" of the government response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), a Maine Republican who heads the
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) of Connecticut, the panel's top Democrat, said they plan to begin an oversight investigation next week when the full Senate returns from a summer recess.

Back, what seems like a millenia ago before Bush was in office, I used to be a very strong advocate for a "parliamentary" type system where one party or the other had the chance to control government. I felt this would result in things getting done more efficiently and with more accountability.

One thing the Bush/GOP dominance over the past five years has taught me is that this type of government can only work in the midst of a very well-informed, involved populace who will actively hold their government accountable. That has just not happened in the U.S with a populace more focused on missing white women than on crimes by their government.

We've had three major events, all mismanaged by the Bush administration and the Republican controlled Congress - 9/11 (and pre-9/11), Iraq, and now Katrina. I'm not even including the other little matters of Haliburton, torture (more on this later), RoveGate and on and on and on. Yet, in all these instances there has been no accountability.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

No. In fact. If you're in the Bush administration and you screw up (almost a job requirement it seems), you get a medal or a promotion!

So now there's this announcement that there's going to be a serious Congressional investigation into FEMA and the handling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Pardon my French....but Bullshit.

Susan Collins, while very nice, is a wimpy middle-of-the roader who, on her best day may criticize the President's new suit. Joe Liberman is the classic DINO (democrat in name only), a frequent apologist for Bush, and as reliable as cooked spaghetti. Assigning such an investigation to these folks is like assigning Cheney to investigate Haliburton. What a joke.

If you get a chance, read Billmon's post. He calls it right out of the chute , a bipartisan cover up. This graf pretty much summarizes what the two might as well have said in their press announcement:

"In keeping with recent congressional practice, we will try to shield the president and the senior members of his administration from directly responsibility for this fiasco, although a few token resignations may be required this time around," the pair said in a joint statement. "Our primary focus, however, will be on figuring out how to throw billions of dollars in additional funding to the very same agencies that failed so spectacularly this past week."

We DESPERATELY NEED some sort of accountability moment. Promotions for incompetence cannot be the standard in our leadership and government. If we don't demand, and get, accountability from our Congress and President now, in the 2006 Congressional elections, or in 2008, I fear we are lost. Without that accountability, there's not a politician on god's green earth that won't emulate tactics used in the Rovian/Cheney/Bush adminstration. And we certainly don't need that.