Competent, Incompetent, Benign or Evil?

A competent and benign president would have acted on FEMA's 2001 advice to prepare for the top three most likely disaster scenarios, 1) A NYC terror attack, 2) a NOLA hurricane or 3) a SF earthquake. A competent benign president would have avoided the 9-11 tragedy altogether and reacted to the NOLA disaster promptly, personally and appropriately.

An incompetent and benign president would have underestimated the importance of the original 2001 FEMA advice and missed the warning signs prior to 9-11. Guilt feelings about that failure would have colored his subsequent actions and caused him to be somewhat conservative in his future dealings. He might become hyper-cautious, seeking maximum possible collaboration in matters of security and disaster planning. Any restructuring would have been conducted with a high level of due diligence using experts. His incompetence would be somewhat mitigated after those around him see the ramifications of his first failure.

After 9-11 an incompetent evil president would, like Bush, perhaps take action to decrease the importance of disaster mitigation and response by morphing FEMA into a quasi-military semi-police organization with some disaster response and planning responsibilities, such as Homeland Security (an organization which certainly has not lived up to its title). However, an incompetent evil president would overreach in his desire to use these newly-created powers to consolidate and monopolize power. The opposition would retake power by turning his transparent Machiavellianism against him.

A competent, evil president would use the tragedies (LIHOP/MIHOP questions aside) to consolidate public support, intimidate the media, co-opt the opposition and advance a public agenda.

It would appear that we are cursed with a highly (but not absolutely) competent, profoundly evil administration.

Patriots cannot let him up when he makes the uncommon mistake. If you're furious about his failure to protect us - good. Hold on to it. That righteous fury may save the lives of others one day.