There’s so much blame to go around in the Katrina disaster, it’s hard to fit it all on one blog, and I think I’ve been unjustifiably easy on Governor Blanco. Not that I’ve praised her or anything, but I haven’t criticized her as much as I’ve criticized Ray Nagin and Michael Brown. But don’t misinterpret that; it doesn’t mean I don’t fault her. Listen to this:
A lot of doctors…rushed to New Orleans (at their own expense) to help in the effort. Doctors (especially in refugee centers like the convention center and the Superdome) were overworked and there weren’t enough to deal with the health needs of refugees. … Since licenses are issued by states, it’s illegal for [doctors] to practice medicine in a state where [they’re] not licensed. …In emergencies like natural disasters it’s normal for states to suspend this requirement and offer temporary reciprocity with the other 49 states, recognizing their licenses as being valid in the affected state. In an emergency, who cares where your doctor’s license comes from? Usually this requires a proclamation from the governor stating that there’s an emergency and that out-of-state licenses will temporarily be as good as in-state licenses.
In Louisiana, it took several days for the governor to issue such a proclamation. Meanwhile, doctors from all over the country just sat around in New Orleans, unable to do anything.
Un-freakin’-believable. (Hat tip: Yehudit.)
The writer concludes brilliantly:
A lot goes on in a disaster, so maybe you’re thinking the governor of Louisiana had too many things to worry about. I think that’s bullsh*t. Preparing for a disaster means making lists of the things you’re supposed to do when disaster strikes. Issuing a reciprocity proclamation is standard procedure. Other states have done it the same day as other disasters. New York issued theirs on 9/11. Florida has issued them several times as hurricanes struck. Someone is supposed to have the list and make those things happen. In the meantime, the governor of Louisiana was all over tv, bawling her eyes out and tearfully congratulating herself and other politicians. Someone should have bitch-slapped her and told her to get a grip and do her effin job. I’m sure Winston Churchill was sad about the Blitz but did he spend his time weeping on the BBC? If he had, the BBC would probably be broadcasting in German today.
Indeed.
P.S. If you’re wondering why the doctors didn’t just say “to hell with it” and help anyway, even without the legal right to do so, please read the whole post, particularly this part:
Before you say “they should have helped people anyway” you should know a little about what could happen to them if they did. Practicing medicine without a license recognized in the state you’re in is a major crime, usually a felony with a long prison sentence. Even if the state doesn’t prosecute you for it, doing it voids your malpractice insurance which means you may lose your ability to practice anywhere. And if Dad practiced medicine without a license in Louisiana, he could face disciplinary action here in Wyoming. Committing a felony (even in another state) is often just cause for stripping someone of their medical license. And if anyone he treated in Louisiana later sued him for malpractice, he would have no insurance and no defense. Under the law, all unlicensed medical practice is malpractice, even if you don’t do anything wrong.
It’s one thing to be humanitarian; it’s another thing to risk your entire career (and even your freedom) doing so. And if you think there isn’t a real risk that some litigious idiot would take advantage of the situation and sue the doctor, you’re living in a different country than I am.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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September 11th, 2005 at 11:52:02 pm
Especially since the FEMA simulation last year, “Hurricane Pam”, showed that even a Cat 3 hurricane would breach the levees and retaining walls, causing exactly the disaster that happened this year. After going through that, knowing that a Cat 4/5 was coming in, you would think that Blanco, Nagin, and FEMA would have had their ducks all lined up and ready to go after Katrina left town. That is what preparedness and simulations are supposed to accomplish.
September 12th, 2005 at 1:10:43 am
You know, I’m kinda sick of these anecdotes of doctors and aid workers not having the proper papers or clearances and therefore not doing their job. If I’m sick, I don’t give a damn whether or not the Governor has signed some pro forma document giving reciprocity to other states’ doctors.
The doctors who didn’t treat patients because they were waiting for some official to pat their head and say “It’s okay now” are, I think, more responsible than Blanco.
Whatever happened to common sense? The doctors should have gotten off their asses and done something. People were dying.
September 12th, 2005 at 1:12:32 am
Squid, read the entire post that I linked to. It answers your complaint quite well. Frankly, your comment, while reasonable-sounding, is ignorant of reality. A doctor simply CANNOT risk practicing without a license — you might not “give a damn” about the legalities, but all it takes is one idiot to sue a doctor for malpractice, and the doctor loses the case automatically because he/she didn’t have a valid license, and his/her whole career is ruined. And we all know there are plenty of litigious idiots in this country.
September 12th, 2005 at 1:20:54 am
I just added a “P.S.” addressing this issue.
September 12th, 2005 at 2:10:30 am
Here’s an anecdote about how hated Blanco is here. Last night, as mentioned, I was at Tiger Stadium watching the game on the projection screens. When the bit with Blanco’s statment came up, everyone there booed. It was probably the loudest boo of the night, with only the second facemasking call being close to it.
September 12th, 2005 at 2:32:34 am
Mike’s brother Matt,
That shouldn’t be much of a surprise under any circumstances.
1. Baton Rouge is probably the most Republican area of the entire state, which means her support would have been low even just on party lines
2. She got booed at the Sugar Bowl in 2003, shortly after her election, when the Tigers were playing for the National Title.
3. She got booed in absentia at the LSU National Championship celebrations at Tiger Stadium later that month, when Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu spoke and mentioned her name in passing.
Let’s just say that there’s a long history of Tiger fans telling Blanco where to shove it.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:11:12 am
? And you call that brilliant, Brendan?
I’m not a close reader of your site, but I have not seen similar empty threats of physical violence to the President or Mayor Nagin. I’m not sure what the equivalent slur is for a white man from Yale, but you’ve stopped short of calling for nigger lynching for Mayor Nagin. So why are you promoting ‘bitch slapping’? It’s cheap and nasty and just the sort of thing that is going to get you in trouble as a practicing attorney.
You are off my links list.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:25:44 am
It wasn’t the “bitch-slapping” part that I considered brilliant; it was the Churchill reference. (Hence, that’s the part I boldfaced.) The notion that sex or gender had anything to do with anything simply never occurred to me; when I personally use the term “bitch-slapping” (which is rarely), I use it irrespective of gender. I am just as likely to talk about “bitch-slapping” a man as “bitch-slapping” a woman. I can’t speak for the author of this particular quote, but because of my own personal “gender-blindness,” it never occurred to me to wonder, “Hey, would he have said that about Nagin too?” or whatever. I only know that I would have, if it had seemed appropriate. I also know that, when I read the quote to my fiancee, the former director of a feminist organization on USC’s campus, she cracked up and did not object to the terminology. Of course, Becky is not exactly the most P.C. person on the planet. But regardless of all that, your comment is distinctly over the top. It is not a “threat of physical violence”; the term in this context is CLEARLY metaphorical. Nor am I “promoting ‘bitch slapping’.” Again — it’s a metaphor.
Sorry to see you go.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:42:01 am
A bit of Googling reveals: previous uses of the term “bitch-slap” on this blog:
SAID BY ME:
“CBS richly deserved [Kansas coach Roy] Williams’s bitch-slap.” (link)
“Henry Hyde’s congressional committee is majorly bitch-slapping France, Russia and the U.N. over the oil-for-food scandal right now.” (link)
“You should really read the whole thing, especially if you’re one of those who tend to raise some of the arguments that are thoroughly bitch-slapped below.” (link)
ME QUOTING SOMEONE ELSE:
“Miller bitch slapped Kerry around and rightfully so.” (link)
SAID BY A COMMENTER:
“Maybe Auburn would have been a better challenge in the Orange Bowl. But maybe they’d have been bitch-slapped like OU.” (link)
“Who was [Monk Malloy] bitch slapping there? The trustees or Jenkins? Or both?” (link)
Google turns up not a single instance where the term has been used to refer to a female before. It has been used to refer to individual men, groups of men, foreign countries, an international organization, a television network, a football team and certain types of arguments.
So, if you want to argue that the term is inherently offensive (like “nigger lynching”), go ahead. No one has ever made that argument to me before, but I am willing to consider it. However, you are completely incorrect if your argument is that I have a sexist or offensive intent when I say it (or rather, quote someone else saying it). The evidence contradicts you entirely on that point.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:53:05 am
Here is more on the term “bitch slap”. There are multiple, contradictory meanings, but the original meaning involves the female as aggressor, not as recipient of the aggression. That said, I believe the author’s usage falls under definition #2: “A bitch-slap can also be a slap given, particularly but not necessarily to a female, who is being rude or hysterical to calm or subdue her (or him).” Note that phrase “particularly but not necessarily”; as my previous use of the term shows, I have never had a sexist outlook regarding this term, and so the idea that it would be more likely to be used with regard to a female simply never occurred to me. I also would point you to this concluding sentence: “This practical definiton has evolved in its figurative sense to mean a slap given to one person by another in order for the administer of the slap to assert dominance over the receiver of it.”
September 12th, 2005 at 7:36:16 am
There’s an argument to just stop licensing professions if ever I saw one. Besides, I trust a hospital with a job opening to know what to look for better than some state bureaucrat who knows nothing of medicine.
So, under current law, a doctor on vacation in another state can’t respond to an emergency? That’s just plain stupid.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:43:17 am
WOW!! considering the flagrant use of language these days I wonder why it is so appauling to say bitch slap? I guess you definately have a larger audience Brendan and have to watch a bit more of what you say. That being said this is still a personal blog for his thoughts and ramblings if he wishes, inwhich includes expressing his anger and what not. I think if we all took things a little less literally we would be better off.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:45:52 am
I think one of the appropriate uses of Federal Emergency Management/State Emergency Managment policy would be that when a State of Emergency exists (i.e., when the declaration is signed by the president or the governor) it would automatically suspend the requirement for licensing in Good Samaritan situations.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:09:36 am
I think one of the big problems in society as a whole, and especially in this disaster, is the worry of offending anyone. People are dying an losers are worried about offending someones feelings.
Brendan, you keep using bitch slapping when refering to Blanco. She is a bitch and she needs to be slapped into reality. She should have resigned her position and allowed a competent person to lead the State of Louisiana in this disaster.
As a Louisianian myself, I have again seen what Liberal Democratic leadership offers the State and it is pathetic. I worked in the Legislature for several years and I have seen first hand the pathetic politics of Louisiana slowly kill the State, its people and cities.
Blanco and Louisiana Democrats have blood on thier hands…
September 12th, 2005 at 9:24:26 am
BAH!!! Now its all teh Democrats fault…and people said politics wouldnt play into this disaster. Should I start listing the inept Repulicans? Guess who I would start with…
September 12th, 2005 at 12:34:48 pm
The blame for the mishandling of this tragedy falls to Republicans and Democrats, Federal and local officials alike. Everyone dropped the ball here.
By saying the democrats have “blood on their hands” or on the other side of the coin placing blame solely Dubya’s head is completely pointless.
Our leaders should not be pointing fingers nor should we be doing so, because in this case the buck would be passed till the end of TIME and in the end what would we learn?…that NOBODY did their job as well as they should have and frankly thats what we know RIGHT NOW. All this soap box crapola about investigating “what went wrong” is going to tell us what we ALREADY know. Its a total waste of time.
So if we know that this situation was totally mishandled, what can be done with this knowledge? Hopefully, other cities in danger of similar catastrophies will use Katrina as a model for what NOT to do and get off their butts to make sure their disaster plans are detailed and efficient.
Hurricane victims do not need political speeches or grim faced
“tours of the disaster area” nor do they need dramatic declarations of blame. What they need is the continued support of their fellow Americans.
September 12th, 2005 at 12:50:29 pm
Perspective, folks …
This may be the most incisive cartoon I have seen in *years* - and I am intrigued by what the response is likely to be to it from the D-list …
Competence revealed
Enjoy !
September 12th, 2005 at 1:10:23 pm
sexual harassment video training for Firefighters, the mayor waiting for legal advice on evacuations, the bus fiasco probably due to liability and doctor afraid to help because of legalities…common thread?
Lawyers! The have strangled and stiffed our national common sense, decency and ability to even act in a disaster.
September 12th, 2005 at 1:17:30 pm
Ummm Alasdair, if you actually paid attention for once instead of worshiping your signed picture of George W. Bush, you would have noticed that we have all placed plenty of blame on Nagin and Blanco. It just so happens that Bush, Brown, and Chertoff screwed up too.
This ridiculous belief by partisans on both sides that fault can only lie with one party is the exact reason I find political parties to be so utterly stupid. You people are so invested in your side being right (otherwise your whole worldview comes crashing down) that you just can’t criticize your own side.
Sorry Alasdair, but you still don’t get it, I’m not like you, I and others like me are perfectly capable of seeing blame regardless of political bent. It just so happens that over the years I have seen a whole lot more to criticize Bush for. Someday maybe you will understand this idea of independent thought, and understand that just because someone is critcizing a politician they aren’t doing so with an agenda other than that they think that politician is doing a crappy job.
Let me try and put it simpler for you. Its not that I dislike Bush therefore I think everything he does is wrong, its that I think that most of what he does is wrong therefore I don’t like him and am critical of him.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:04:02 pm
Hmmm … who was it that said “Prediction is the ONLY Science !” ???
D-list Defensive +1
The most recent time I saw a signed picture of a politician, it was one from a politician to one of my in-law-in-laws (my wife’s mother’s sister’s husband) thanking him for helping him to make it through Law School … the politician who signed it was Robert Kennedy …
An interesting exercise is to ask a partisan to name something good that an opposing party’s leader has done … when you are willing to go through the same exercise, yourself, try it some time …
The rabid partisan usually cannot get past mentioning the good thing without adding “… BUT …” followed by a litany of the bad thing(s) the person did/does …
So … for example … with strict candour, I can tell this blog that one of the D-list leaders did something good and noble today … no BUTs, a direct statement of appreciation from me to David …
He said “I’m not like you” - and, for that compliment, I thank him !
September 13th, 2005 at 1:30:39 am
Sorry Alasdair but plenty of politicians on both sides send out autographed pictures, I know my grandparents have a George and Laura one on their fridge.
Whats truly sad is you seem to be proud of the fact that you are incapable of accepting that Republicans are capable of doing wrong. Its especially sad that you can’t admit that there were failures up and down the chain in this instance.
September 13th, 2005 at 2:09:43 am
Del,
“I’m not a close reader of your site, but I have not seen similar empty threats of physical violence to the President or Mayor Nagin.”
How about this threat to the President, from a U.S. Senator no less.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/4/101101.shtml
Perhaps Landrieu should be prosecuted, seeing as it is illegal to threaten the President of the United States. :-)
September 13th, 2005 at 2:09:43 am
Del,
“I’m not a close reader of your site, but I have not seen similar empty threats of physical violence to the President or Mayor Nagin.”
How about this threat to the President, from a U.S. Senator no less.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/4/101101.shtml
Perhaps Landrieu should be prosecuted, seeing as it is illegal to threaten the President of the United States. :-)
September 13th, 2005 at 8:57:51 am
woooooooottttttttt!! This is actually getting really funny. Point is Brown is now gone and they are replacing him with someone with experience!! (shocking) So I believe that is one thing down now just a couple million more to go…baby steps…