Sleeping Dog Blog

At one point in the President's speech last night, I turned to my wife and said, "I don't like the sound of that." It was this line:

It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces - the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.

It turns out I was not the only one who found that sentence disturbing. Devilstower has a great diary over at DailyKos that spells it out:

There. Catch that last sentence? It summarizes everything Bush really has to say about the situation.

1. It repeats the "I was hampered by legalities" excuse, implying that he didn't act because (insert your favorite latin legal phrase) restrained him.

2. It spreads the blame to state and local governments that knew they were out of their depth and had already begged for federal assistance.

3. The power grab. This is the real heart of the thing -- "requires greater federal authority." Bush will now use the Katrina disaster as a means to gather still more power to his administration.

To see how this will work, you have only to look at the response to 9/11. Everyone directly involved agreed that the government had not been hampered by law or institutional barriers, but had only failed through plain old government inertia and because the Bush administration was not paying enough attention to the problem. Even so, the immediate response of the Bush administration was to use 9/11 as an opportunity to grab more power to themselves, and to erode civil liberties.

Now that pattern is repeating itself. The situation in New Orleans had nothing to do with legal restrictions which kept the federal government out. However, Bush will now use Katrina as an excuse to gather more powers to himself.

* Expect new legislation that makes it the decision of the president, not the governor, when to send in the troops.

* Expect new legislation that makes it easier for the president to declare martial law.

* Expect new legislation that makes it easier for the president to take control of national guard troops, including units within their home state.

* Expect this new legislation to be used much more broadly than in the case of nation disasters.

In effect, expect Bush to use this excuse to overturn Posse Comitatus as it now stands, and to rework the National Guard as an extension of the federal executive. For everyone on the right who ever used the "well, the federal government doesn't have a national police force" meme -- Bush is about to solve that problem for you.

there's more...