From this:
An investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina will "move ahead" even if Democrats choose not to participate, the head of the probe said Wednesday.
"This is not some partisan cover-up," Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to […]
On Sep 21 Governor Kathleen Blanco sent a letter to George Bush requesting a non-partisan probe.
According to this Sep. 12 entry:
…there was one phone call that Gov. Blanco made to the President and he wasn’t available to take it - so it was fielded by White House National Security Advisor Frances Townsend…
Previously: "Bush advisor to investigate Bush administration response". The advisor in question is Townsend.
What they discussed in the call […]
Yesterday the Repubs and Dems were unable to agree on a joint probe, and Sen. Bill Frist scrapped the idea:
…The Democratic leadership has refused to appoint members to a joint committee, citing the lack of equal representation of Democrats on the panel, and the lack of power to issue subpoenas that the majority opposed. Democrats […]
Despite the Banana Republicesque appearance of the move, the Bush administration has selected his homeland security advisor, Fran Townsend, to lead in internal probe into the federal response to Katrina, Reuters says.
…A separate congressional inquiry will also investigate what went wrong with the federal response. But Bush so far has refused to back calls from […]
Hillary Clinton's version of a Katrina Commission was voted down yesterday along party lines:
Senator Clinton's bill would have created a blue-ribbon bipartisan panel modelled on the committee that probed the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
The former first lady said after the vote: "What happened today on the Senate floor is […]
Received via email:
Will you sign our petition for an independent Katrina Commission?
Senators, including many moderate Republicans, are deciding whether to support a Katrina Commission modeled after the 9/11 Commission, this week. We need a really big number of people to sign the petition to show senators and representatives how much support there is for the […]
Investor's Business Daily says:
…Calls for reform of America's disaster-response system are inevitable and proper after a tragedy on the scale of Katrina. But this is no time to act in haste or to just do more of the same and expand the federal role even further. Not only might this increase a false sense of […]
Originally there were to be House hearings on the response to the hurricane, but that's been canceled:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The House majority leader late Tuesday tried to deflect criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by saying "the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," then announced a short […]
In a word, no. Since the blame appears to be shared among the federal government and those in the states and localities, and since it appears to touch both Republicans and Democrats, any investigation needs to be handled by a group that is above partisanship and political favor. The investigation needs to be conducted in […]
