Amateur Hour

In my obsessive Katrina-related web surfing, I have come across countless stories of professional emergency responders being turned away and otherwise sabotaged by officials who seem to lack not only organizational skills but basic human empathy as well.The head of FEMA, which in case anyone has forgotten stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency, is headed a by a man who was fired because the lacked the managerial skills to oversee horse shows. Now I'm sure the oversight of horse shows is not without its challenges, but is there a mitigating factor imaginable where one might consider it acceptable to appoint such a man to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Because I can't.Then again, the man who did the appointing is himself a business failure who thought it was ay-okay to dole out the position to the friend of a friend. I guess when you're overseeing the country you can decide for yourself which government posts need to be staffed by professionals and which are mere window dressing. FEMA? Window dressing.Given such unfathomable decision-making, we should let go of any pretense toward believing that we have a government that is interested in or capable of protecting us from anything. Governing is hard. Governing with horse show rejects is doubly hard.