One of the greatest tests of Leadership with a capital L is how somebody who bears the awesome responsibility of leading a nation deals with the most challenging events to befall that nation. What we've seen this week in President Obama's handling of the catastrophic event that was Hurricane Sandy is nothing less than a perfect object lesson in what that kind of Leadership means.
Clearly, there's more to leadership (I've made my point with the upper case L, so I'll revert now to lower case) than just saying the right things at the right times, though that is clearly important as well. What really defines that leadership though, is a combination of action, attitude, preparation, and having the wisdom to put mechanisms in place that can respond effectively and efficiently to this manner of event long before the event actually occurs. That wisdom is directly related to how one views the role of the federal government, and it's due to the fundamental difference in the way Democrats and Republicans tend to view that role that we've seen such a gulf between the way President Obama has handled Hurricane Sandy and the way George W. Bush handled Hurricane Katrina.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the way the GOP has veered sharply away from its traditional conservative values is the way it has developed utter and total disdain for government. That disdain has led Republican leaders consciously to make decisions that will make government LESS effective, so that they can say "see, government doesn't work, we need to hand everything over to the private sector." How else to explain George Bush's inexplicable decision to put FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in the hands of Michael Brown, aka "Brownie," a man who had zero experience in emergency management? Brown's last position before taking over FEMA was as "Judges and Stewards Commission" for the International Arabian Horses Association. Yes, you read that correctly. How would this experience prepare him for managing such a complex and vital service of the federal government? The answer, of course, is that it wouldn't, and it didn't, and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, as we all know, was a total and absolute failure.
In what must go down as one of the greatest displays of chutzpah of all time, Brown this week criticized the Obama administration for "responding too quickly" to Hurricane Sandy. In the GOP's upside-down view of the world, efficiency and preparation are clearly bad things.
And whom did President Obama appoint to the very same position? The gentleman's name is Craig Fugate. Prior to taking the reins at FEMA, Fugate was Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, a position that he held for eight years, and to which he was appointed by Jeb Bush and then re-confirmed by Charlie Crist. Florida, as we know, has regular emergencies due to its location in prime hurricane territory, and Fugate's reputation and record of accomplishment there were stellar.
What would happen, then, in a Romney administration? Romney is on record as saying that emergency management should be left to the states, and to the extent possible, to the private sector. While there is some truth to the former, in that states already do take the lead in emergency response, FEMA and the federal government are a vital component in any large-scale disaster, and when that component is anything short of top-notch, the consequences can be dire. In spite of how Romney has tried to do his shuffle-to-the-center dance, the budget direction that he and Paul Ryan are trying to push on the country would by necessity entail huge cuts in FEMA's budget. More to the point, his anti-government, privatize everything mentality, would no doubt result in a return to the pathetic federal emergency response we saw under Bush, and away from the prompt, efficient, calm leadership we have seen under President Obama.
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