Foiled by Federalism

Federal officials clearly failed to get the situation in New Orleans under control in a timely fashion. Now that they finally want to, it turns out they can't. On Friday, President Bush proposed an arrangement under which the federal government would at least share control over National Guard and Army forces, with Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré reporting to both the president and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Incredibly, Blanco refused. "She would lose control when she had been in control from the very beginning," Blanco's press secretary, Denise Bottcher, told the New York Times. Well, if Blanco she wants to take responsibility for having controlled the initial response, then she has an awful lot to answer for.