Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

It sickens me to think of what is going to be revealed years down the road about the incompetence of this present administration led by George Bush. As much as I try to like him, things always seem to surface about the problems created by their slow reaction that makes me ask, how did this man become president?

Many say that he is a nice guy, one who would make a nice neighbor. Nice neighbors don’t necessarily make for good leaders. The fiasco over the lack of timely response during hurricane Katrina is appalling. A few people were given up as sacrificial lambs a while back to pacify the tirade of criticism heaped on the White House, but now as investigations unfold the finger of fate seems to continuously point at our president.

As hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast President Bush stayed on vacation at his Texas ranch, Vice President Dick Cheney was fly fishing in Wyoming, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was in Maine. Who was in charge?

The response from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA proved to be inept. As Katrina hit, FEMA Director, Michael Brown responded to FEMA field reports of a deadly situation being ''past critical," by continuing to eat dinner in a Baton Rouge restaurant and saying things like, ''Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" Days later he would be given a pat on the back by the president saying what a fine job he did. Uh?

Brown was eventually made the scapegoat but recently Brown testified before a Senate committee that he told both the White House and Homeland Security on the night of Aug. 29 that ''we were realizing our worst nightmare." Brown said he communicated the dire situation in an e-mail to Card. He said he believed he verbally gave the same message to deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, who was with the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

All of this is starting to bring back memories of an old TV quiz show called Who Do You Trust?

What I don’t understand is why did our president choose to add an additional layer to an already complex hierarchy of our country’s internal intelligence agency by creating the Department of Homeland Security? Can someone tell me what they have done other than come up with kindergarten level of security in establishing a color code that’s supposed to warn us of elevated terror risks? I thought Republicans were the ones to streamline government?

To me this new costly Department falls under the “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth” syndrome. The aftermath of Katrina is what all these cooks served up to the unfortunate people of the Gulf Coast.

Now, to make Homeland Security look like it was the right decision, leaks are coming out revealing specific incidents where they acted to stave off a possible terrorist attack. I’ll put my money on it and I’ll bet that more of these stories will be floated out there in the very near future. This administration is good at damage control of their inflated egos instead of the physical damage control that’s sorely needed by the citizens of the Gulf Coast.

Look for damage control statements to start appearing to try to justify the very complex Senior Citizen drug program that went into effect this year. What ever happened to the theory of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) in its application to new government programs? They have made the program so complex that many are being unnecessarily harassed by not being able to get the drugs that they been taking. Why did the program have to be so complex? If I can’t figure it out without spending four hours of weeding through legalese, how is my mother suppose to figure it out?

It reminds me of some advice given to me years ago that said, “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit.”

The pile has gotten so high that I’ve gotten tired of shoveling.

God Bless America