Michael Chertoff - drumming up business for a company he represents

Today Michael Chertoff, otherwise known as That Guy Who Botched the Hurricane Katrina response, advocates in the increasingly and alarmingly right-wing Washington Post for full-body scanners:

The case of Abdulmutallab shows that we cannot simply "rely on intelligence." Abdulmutallab was not on a watch list that required closer scrutiny. Even if the review President Obama has ordered closes a gap that would have put Abdulmutallab or others on more select watch lists, there are plenty of terrorists out there about whom we know nothing. Too many potentially dangerous people simply would not appear on any watch list. We cannot put all our eggs in the "intelligence basket." That's why, since Sept. 11, 2001, we have worked to establish multiple layers of defense to protect the American people. Watch lists surely are an important layer, as is intelligence-sharing, but others, such as the deployment of advanced detection technology, are just as important.

Claims that the screening amounts to "virtual strip searches" is calculated to alarm the public. As if screening is meant to reveal people's private parts to TSA officers. But the agency has nonetheless taken privacy concerns seriously in creating procedures for using this technology. In deploying the machines, the TSA has strictly limited the number of officers who see the images; separates the officers looking at images from the passengers being screened (so the officers do not know which passengers the images belong to); and uses software to blur the faces on the images -- further protecting the anonymity of passengers. Moreover, the machines are configured to prevent TSA officers from storing or retaining any images. As an additional measure, passengers can choose not to walk through one of the machines and receive a physical examination instead.

In short, the TSA has listened to the reasonable concerns of privacy advocates and incorporated numerous suggestions into its protocols to draw the right balance between security and privacy. The administration must stand firm against privacy ideologues, for whom every security measure is unacceptable. Failing to use all available tools to plug a gap in security puts the lives of airline travelers needlessly at risk.

And failure to use these full-body scanners puts Michael Chertoff's wallet at risk, as we see from the byline (emphasis mine):

The writer was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009 and is co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include a manufacturer of body-imaging screening machines.

Because government spending is A-OK when it goes in the pockets of the well-connected.

Two years ago today...

Let us not forget how the Bush Administration sat by while an American city was lost.

...and that the crony appointments continue to this day. And that George W. Bush may be getting ready to promote the incompetent boob Michael Chertoff to the highest law enforcement position in the country.

And let us vow that no doctor -- and no patients -- should ever, ever have to go through anything like this ever again:

How did things change on Wednesday?
Tuesday night, we lost generator power, and that changed things a lot. ‘Til then we were on generator power so we did have some lights, and we did have some water. Water wasn’t clean, but it was running. But then we didn’t have water, we didn’t have any electricity, commodes were backing up everywhere. Conditions in the hospital started to deteriorate Tuesday night and early Wednesday. When that happens it makes care a lot more difficult. I was called to help suction a patient who had a tracheotomy but we had no suction running. We were going down to very, very basic care. You try every old-time method you can … [P]eople in charge were trying to get helicopters to come, [but] at that time we were told we were low priority. There were people on rooftops [who were going to get rescued first]. They said … there’s not going to be a lot of help coming, [so] what we decided [was] if helicopters were going to show up sporadically, we have to have patients ready and waiting to go.

How many people had died at this point?
I can’t tell you the number. The morgue was full and patients were already in the chapel, people were asking for body bags and “What do we do with bodies?"

In normal triage situations, the sickest people are treated first. But my understanding is that conditions were so bad, you and the other medical staff switched to a reverse triage or battlefield approach. Tell me about this.
The conditions were unbearable. Inside the hospital it was pitch black, with odors, smell, human waste everywhere. It was very rancid. You would take a breath in and it would burn the back of your throat. The patients were very sick. That’s when we had to go from triage to reverse triage because we came to realize if patients aren’t being evacuated, [we had to deal with what we had]. Basically it was a general consensus that we’re not going to be able to save everybody. We hope that we can, but we realize everybody may not make it out.

What were the categories?
We divided patients into groups one, two and three. Patients in category one are able to sit up and walk and are not very sick. Patients in three are critically ill, “Do Not Resuscitate.” The ones in category two were sick, but doing much [better than those in category three]. The triage system was very crude—we’d write the number 1, 2 or 3 on a sheet of paper and tape it across the patient’s chest with their hospital records. There was limited use of flashlights. There were limited batteries. [Parts of the hospital] were pitch black. I’m talking jet black. Very dangerous. It was pitch dark in inner rooms.

What is the reverse triage process like?
Let me tell you, for a patient to be triaged—typical triage isn’t that difficult. Reverse triage is heart wrenching. Absolutely heart wrenching. You place patients into categories. With boats coming and going we could evacuate patients who could sit. There were elderly couples—how do you make that decision who can go when one was sick and the spouse wasn't? Do you let elderly couples go together as husband and wife? Some of these couples had been married 50 years.

When was the first time you were on the seventh floor LifeCare acute unit? How did you come to be there?
On Monday, mid afternoon around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m, the intercom system was still working then. I was with nurses, doing things like setting up emergency operating rooms. We heard a code, a code in LifeCare. The nurse next to me said, “Anna, I think you better go. I don’t think there’s anybody up there.” So I ran up the stairs and when I got there, there was a patient who had arrested and some nurses in room. I intubated the patient, put an endotracheal tube in. The nurses had already started the code. Then another physician came up from the emergency room. The patient didn’t survive. What was interesting to me was that my friend said, “You better go there, I don’t think there’s any doctor there.” The nurses said it’s rare we get a doctor there on LifeCare.

Tell me about conditions from Wednesday night until Thursday.
By the time Wednesday evening came around, if you can imagine in our mind, there is a central area that is a sea of people. A lot of very sick patients in that central triage area. It’s grossly backed up. Few patients had been evacuated. So there was just enough space to walk between the stretchers. It is extremely dark. We’re having to care for patients by flashlight. There were patients that were moaning, patients that are crying. We’re trying to cool them off. We had some dirty water we could use, some ice. We were sponging them down, giving them sips of bottled water, those who could drink. The heat was—there is no way to describe that heat. I was in it and I can’t believe how hot it was. There are people fanning patients with cardboard, nurses everywhere, a few doctors and wall-to-wall patients. Patients are so frightened and we’re saying prayers with them. We kind of looked around at each other and said, “You know there’s not a whole lot we can really do for those people.” We’re waiting [for help]. The people in that area could have [been evacuated] by boat but no boats were coming. I would do what I could with the nurses: changing diapers, cooling patients down with fanning. It wasn’t like, “I’m a doctor, you’re a nurse.” We were all human beings trying to help another human being, whatever it took.

Were people still dying at this point?
Every now and then a nurse would say, “Dr. Pou, this patient isn’t breathing any more.” Or I would be fanning patients and watch them take their last breath. So that’s basically what it was like Wednesday night: kind of a feeling of helplessness, frustration, sadness. It’s sad. You look around and think we live in the greatest country in the world and yet the sick could basically be abandoned like this.

UPDATE: Digby and Susie Madrak were just as horrified by this article as I was.

Blues for New Orleans

In a just world, folk singer Mary Gauthier would be making Britney Spears money.

Unfortunately, we’re living in a world where pop music has been kidnapped by teenagers. Instead of hearing adult music informed by hard-earned experience, we’re subjected to smug children rummaging in Mommy and Daddy’s closet and wearing clothes much too big for them.

Sure, they work hard pretending they’re grownups, but how much does Justin Timberlake really know about loss, betrayal and heartache?

Mary Gauthier does. This songwriter from Louisiana has been around the block a few times. In a husky growl sandpapered by shots of whisky, cigarettes, and yelling at the backs of lovers walking out the door, Gauthier sings bleak, unsentimental tales shimmering with a haunting beauty. Drunks, losers, and abused wives live in her songs, and Gauthier’s sorcery keeps these broken people lost in America chillingly authentic. And tragic.

Speaking of tragic, Mary Gauthier’s song “Mercy Now” is a grim soundtrack to this video directed by Demetria Kalodimos. It’s about what happened in New Orleans after Katrina came. Other than making rich people richer, the Bush Administration has been monstrously incompetent, and seeing New Orleans slowly drown as dozens of stupid politicians did nothing but make useless speeches was, and is, an American tragedy that will haunt this country for years. Even Osama bin Laden never managed to destroy an entire city. So please tell me why an useless idiot like Michael ("I'm not Skeletor, damn it!") Chertoff is being considered for Gonzo's old job? I haven't forgotten about what he didn't do, nor have I forgiven him for his stupid negligence.

Because of what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 9/11 aren’t just numbers anymore.

We have new numbers now to think about now:

8/29/2005.

Remember.

Wow.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Fredo:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

Mr. Bush has not yet chosen a replacement but will not leave the position open long, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Attorney General's resignation had not yet been made public.

Jonathan Adler of National Review wants Chertoff. on the grounds that "he would bring substantial experience to the job." Yeah. They want this guy: