Change We Can Believe In

When Kathleen Blanco was governor of Louisiana it was if the Keystone Cops were running the state. True, Governor Blanco had a rough relationship with the Mayor of Louisiana. But her preparedness for hurricane Katrina ranked among the worst displays of public leadership of any in memory. That was an exceptionally high standard as she had Mayor Nagin and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)(Michael Brown) rivaled her incompetency or exceeded it - but she was pretty bad herself. At the end of the disaster (both the weather problem and her administration) Governor Blanco said "At the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again. The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility." And she correctly declined to run for re-election.

This afternoon, as hurricane Gustav approached, there was another vision. The new Governor, seemed to be on the spot and prepared with a definitive list of priorities both before the hurricane hits and afterword. Jindal seemed well organized. He also seemed to understand that this was not, as Blanco seemed to consider the events around Katrina, a chance to do dueling press conferences but a chance to lead. I am not sure what will happen when Gustav hits land. I hope the storm is not as bad as Katrina was, but I was really impressed with Jindal's organization. He truly seemed to be a different kind of governor, prepared to use the resources of government creatively in response to a pending problem. It would be refreshing to see more of our political leaders start from the premise that the job we hire them for is to govern not to engage in endless public feuds.