Josh Marshall has a couple winners today.

First, he illustrates why Brownie, incompetant though he was, may not have been the whole problem at DHS:

DHS Secretary Chertoff didn’t declare Katrina an ‘Incident of National Significance’ until late on Tuesday August 30th, almost two days after the hurricane hit. That’s the administrative trip wire that sets off the standing government plans for a coordinated national response to natural or man-made disasters. As Jonathan Landay, et al. explain, the now-reviled and discarded Michael Brown only had limited authority to act prior to Chertoff’s determination on the night of the 30th. Chertoff was the one in charge of the response before that. TPM

Chertoff, of course, still has a job.

Second, Mr Marshall calls our attention to a piece from our hometown paper with some very odd power-priority goings-on:

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast. That order – to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. – delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt. […] Dan Jordan, manager of Southern Pines Electric Power Association, said Vice President Dick Cheney’s office called and left voice mails twice shortly after the storm struck, saying the Collins substations needed power restored immediately. […] [Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Mike] Callahan said energy officials told him gasoline and diesel fuel needed to flow through the pipeline to avert a national crisis from the inability to meet fuel needs in the Northeast. Callahan said the process of getting the pipelines flowing would be difficult and that there was a chance the voltage required to do so would knock out the system – including power to Wesley Medical Center in Hattiesburg. With Forrest General Hospital operating on generators, Wesley was the only hospital operating with full electric power in the Pine Belt in the days following Katrina. “Our concern was that if Wesley went down, it would be a national crisis for Mississippi,” Callahan said. “We knew it would take three to four days to get Forrest General Hospital’s power restored and we did not want to lose Wesley.” Hattiesburg American

Fuck the hospitals and the poor people! We needs us some fuel up north first!

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.