Following up on last week's report on the pathetically inadequate deployment of available National Guard troops along the Gulf Coast, Tim Dickinson used a post to this National Affairs blog to report the latest deployment figures:
Louisiana:
Troops Authorized: 6,000
Troops activated by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal: 1,029
Percent idle: 83%
Miles of state coastline oiled: 259Alabama:
Authorized: 3,000
Activated by Republican Governor Bob Riley: 408
Percent idle: 86%
Miles oiled: 47Florida:
Authorized: 2,500
Activated by Independent Governor Charlie Crist: 96
Percent idle: 96%
Miles oiled: 69Mississippi: Authorized: 6,000
Activated by Republican Governor Haley Barbour: 72
Percent idle: 99%
Miles oiled: 48
Note that the changes from last week are marginal and certainly do not in any way constitute an improvement to a bad situation. Dickinson's post provides no account by any of the four governors to justify what he (rightly) called in his first report "Dereliction of Duty." My hypothesis still stands: These four Republican governors regard any action that President Barack Obama can claim as a positive achievement to be a greater menace than any destruction of the environment that can be attributed to the BP oil spill. At what point in this disgraceful unfolding of events shall we notice that other countries around the world are starting to assign the "failed state" epithet to us?
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