A worthwhile proposal

Instapundit has some recommendations for disaster preparedness which should be implemented, city by city and county by county, across the country.

One excerpt. The rest, you should read for yourself:

Put somebody in charge. Politicians and bureaucrats thrive on diffusion of responsibility, because it helps them escape blame (as they're trying to do in the fingerpointing orgy that's going on now). Somebody needs to be clearly in charge. Right now it's mostly state governors, but this needs to be made inescapably plain, regardless of where it is. I don't agree with Mickey Kaus that we should ignore federalism and just put the President, or the FEMA Director, in charge and empower them to override state and local officials, but even that would be better than leaving no one in charge.

As I see it, "ignoring federalism" would require a an act of Congress (at a minimum) to clarify the intent of posse comitatus to allow federalized use of the national guard to engage in police actions on American soil. Parties (e.g. 1, 2, 3) disagree whether such actions are proscribed by law. Absent congressional action, the Supreme Court could be asked to step in to prevent the President from using NG units in this manner.

But aside from what it would take to make this legal, we need to really ask ourselves if it's the right thing to do.

Tags:emergency, blame game