Get your Krugman while you can

NYTimes columnist and insightful Bush Administration critic Paul Krugman is among the many opinionizers who are about to go behind a subscription-only barrier (starting Monday) and thus out of the blogosphere. His column today is about the Katarina response inadequacy and what it might indicate about the government as a whole:

But what we really should be asking is whether FEMA's decline and fall is unique, or part of a larger pattern. What other government functions have been crippled by politicization, cronyism and/or the departure of experienced professionals? How many FEMA's are there?

We know that people have left the state department because of political twisting of their reports, that scientists have quit the FDA and EPA because of redacted scientific findings and overridden recommendations, and that the CIA has been replacing experts with loyalists -- Krugman mentions these and others that I was less aware of, such as the Treasury Department (!) and even Homeland Security.

The point is that Katrina should serve as a wakeup call, not just about FEMA, but about the executive branch as a whole. Everything I know suggests that it's in a sorry state - that an administration which doesn't treat governing seriously has created two, three, many FEMA's.

All of those changes tend to go below the public radar, but I suspect that their impact on our nation are substantial and will last (and need repairing) for many years after Bush has gone back to the golf course...

(via Follow Me Here)