spin

The Administration's political damage control plan has been to shift blame for failed the Katrina response from the federal to the state and local level, as described in the following New York Times article:
White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

Salon has edited together a little montage of politicos and talking heads taking up this line here:
The Blame Game

Today on This American Life Ira Glass spoke with federal emergency and homeland security policy expert William Nicholson about this question of authority in the face of an officially declared disaster. Here is a transcript of part of this discussion. The full radio show (which is stunning) will be available on their website within the next week.

It really comes down to a couple of basic facts. The Governor of Louisiana declares a state of emergency the Friday before the storm hits, right, calls on the federal government to step in. Then President Bush officially declares a state of emergency in Louisiana the next day, the Saturday before the storm, and authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to act. You can read the paper where he does this on the White House website. Basically, that should have settled who was in charge.

"After that happened, there was plenty of authority. There was all the authority in the world." We checked out this idea -- that from that point the federal government was in fact in charge -- we checked that out with several different experts and consultants on these issues this week and they all agreed that the law is unambiguous. This particular guy is William Nicholson, author of the books Emergency Response and Emergency Management Law and Homeland Security Law and Policy. And if you’re in homeland security policy you might want to check those out. He says that once the governor asks for help and the President declares a state of emergency the Feds basically have the broad powers to do what’s necessary. And he says, even if the President hadn’t declared a state of emergency, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Chertoff, could have acted. There’s this whole, newfangled way for him to take emergency powers under something called the National Response Plan. [Mr. Nicholson and Ira discuss federal authority to act without state authorization.]

Remember, you heard it here first. Remember you heard it at all.