5 September 2005 - DHS

Will Rogers said, “Nothing you can’t spell will ever work.” That is exactly why government is so full of acronyms. It’s perfectly deliberate; every important agency knows that the best way to increase its budget is to fail spectacularly. FEMA (Federal Emergency Mungement Agency, if I spelled that right) never was the greenest weed in the garden, but since being plowed into DHS (Department of Harassing Sightseers) it has been overshadowed—because they know that natural disasters are historically greater than terrorist attacks. When DHS boss Michael Chertoff claims that nobody could foresee the levees breaking, even though there had been warnings for decades and newspaper predictions two days in advance, it’s all part of the bureaucratic jujitsu: From weakness comes power.