Houston, We Have a PROBLEM

At some point over the weekend, I cracked wise that the president* soon would tweet that his hurricane was bigger than any of those that made landfall during the presidency of Barack Obama. Now, I think it might be the first thing he says when he finally makes landfall there this week. It was quite a few days for him. He took another whack at dismissing transgender soldiers and sailors. He pardoned the egregious Joe Arpaio. He hinted that he might reverse the DACA policy. He plugged a book by Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, in whose jails people die of thirst, and who makes Arpaio look like Dorothea Dix. And, of course, he kept tweeting Wow as the rain fell and the damage mounted.

As it happens, I agree with Steve M that he's probably just smart enough to come out of this without accidentally tying his own shoes together again. The NYT already is halfway to giving him credit for not doing so. Engaged! He's engaged! For a president of a country which is watching one of its largest cities turn into an inland sea, this is the equivalent of noticing that the president is not in a coma. The real test is going to come in the next few months, when the shambles he's made of the various federal agencies becomes tragically obvious. If they're not underfunded and understaffed, they're peopled at the top with, at best, inexperienced hacks and, at worst, with saboteurs like Pruitt, or outright loons.

The EPA is only one example. There is no question that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be expected to be heavily involved in the lengthy reconstruction effort. Alec MacGillis last week published an expose of how howlingly bad HUD has become under the leadership of Dr. Ben Carson. Deep in that story we find that the HUD official in charge of the Houston area is one Beth Van Duyne, the mayor of Irving, whose main political activity heretofore had been her active fight against the phantom menace of Sharia law in the United States, and for her clumsy intervention in the famous "clock boy" faux-trage.

I'm sure she's right on top of the housing calamity that's befallen Houston. This should work out splendidly.

  Charles P Pierce

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.