For all that went wrong the last couple weeks down on the Gulf Coast, there’s still at least one thing to be grateful for: Bernard Kerik could have been DHS Secretary instead of Michael Chertoff. And as poor a performance as Chertoff may have put in, I doubt he has too many mob cronies and he’s clearly got some managerial experience. And, heck, we don’t even have to get into Judith Regan, which is more than you can say for Kerik.
But now it seems they’ve brought Kerik out of mothballs to float some new Bush talking points. Heck, maybe they’ll make him head of FEMA. I hear that job’s opening up. And for all I know maybe he went into a public corruption 12 Step Program after last fall. So who knows? Maybe he can keep his nose clean this time.
Anyway, TPM Reader JU tells me that Bernie was on Keith Olbermann last night and floated this line.
They knew five days, six days in advance there was a category 5 storm. In a post-9/11 world, did they have protocols to evacuate? Was there a mandatory evacuation call? Did they have buses lined up? Did they have food and water lined up? These are all things that crisis managers had this day and age have to have. And I think there may be a question whether that was done or not.
That’s great. They knew five <$NoAd$>or six days in advance that it was going to be a Cat 5 storm? Kerik must have an astrologer who hooks him up with the really sweet info since the National Hurricane Center said that Katrina was a Cat 2 moving toward a Cat 3 storm only two days before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast.
Do we have to endure this goof again? Can Rudy hire him back and put him deep undercover?
