It's not just that, Kelly. It's the fact that all he had to do was turn on the TV to see for himself that by Wednesday, the locals had lost all ability to control things and he should have used every emergency power at his disposal, up to and including an emergency airlifts and manadatory commandeering of bus fleets, etc, to sieze control of the situation. (as well as sending that big hospital ship that was hanging aorund in the Gulf Coast that had 6 operating rooms, several hundred beds and 100,000 gallons of fresh water) etc. He is VERY good at finding loopholes in federal laws when it serves his purpose (such as the way he appointed John Bolton to the UN position) and "inventing" ones for situations where there isn't one (Iraq, for starters).
It's a question of timing and priorities. Renquist's death was announced Sat evening, and he somehow found 40 minutes to talk to Roberts on Sunday in the middle of all this (He probalby hasn't even addressed Iraq for a week, even as Queda takes over a whole town and flies its flag over their City Hall, and insurgents raid the Interior Ministry--I hope he also found time to send a condolance letter to the interim Iraqi Govt over the bridge tragedy?) and then announced him as the successor to the Chief Justice at the crack of 7 AM Monday. Granted, choosing a Chief Justice is a lot easier than coordinating a Marshall Plan to to save a city, but we have to look at the speed and the timing here. 36 hours? Plus, we have to marvel at the sudden all-out saturation on the media, Team Bush to the affected areas, the lightning speed with which the "all-out hurricane war" (as one White House Spokesman calls it --I'll bet it was Karl Rove) is being conducted. Where was this speed, this urgency, last week? When it serves his self-interest, it's amazing what W can do.
It seems that promoting his agenda on the Court is more important to him personally, than saving lives. Sorry to be so partisan here, but like I said in another thread here, I was initially ready to cut him some slack on this one, even feel sorry for him. That feeling evaporated by Thursday afternoon.