GOP wants one of the top officials in charge of the Katrina response to be our next Attorney General

[Bjorn Against]

This is the man that Republicans want to make your next Attorney General:

Lawmakers grilled Chertoff about why he stayed home the Saturday before Katrina made landfall on Monday, Aug. 29, why he made a previously scheduled trip to Atlanta that Tuesday, and why he didn’t act more decisively to speed up the federal response.

“I don’t get a sense that your heart was in this, frankly,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.

Chertoff said he relied on former FEMA Director Michael Brown as the “battlefield commander” and focused his efforts on making sure FEMA had all the resources it needed. He said he stayed in telephone contact with the office while at home and during the Atlanta trip.

“I don’t think there was a lack of a sense of urgency,” he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9754906/

Yes, you read that right. This is the man who was in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security oversees FEMA. Yet Michael Chertoff thought that he did not do his job when a massive hurricane was headed for New Orleans, instead he decided he could just go home. Then the storm hits and what does he do? He takes a trip to Atlanta. Not New Orleans but Atlanta. But it is all ok he tells us because he made a few phone calls. It doesn't matter that he was spending his time either at home or in Atlanta he tells us, because he doesn't think there was a lack of a sense of urgency. Obviously that trip to Atlanta was far more urgent than the thousands of people who were stranded in New Orleans without any help.

Of course sadly enough there is more:

Chertoff: Katrina scenario did not exist
However, experts for years had warned of threat to New Orleans

Monday, September 5, 2005; Posted: 2:55 p.m. EDT (18:55 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defending the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued Saturday that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur.

But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years.

Chertoff, fielding questions from reporters, said government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans. (See the video on a local paper's prophetic warning -- 3:30 )

"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/

I knew that there was a possibility of the levees breaking before Katrina hit New Orleans, I know very little about New Orleans infrastructure. Yet Chertoff is telling me that he had no clue this could happen. And this man was supposed to be in charge of the Department of Homeland Security?

How the hell could anyone even consider appointing this guy to be Attorney General? How this guy's name even gets mentioned is beyond me, but to see all these pundits take the notion of Attorney General Chertoff seriously shows just how dumb our pundits really are.

If Senate approves this guy I just won't know what to say, are our standards for one of the top offices in the nation really this low?