The Chinese believed that great natural disasters are omens. That rulers have lost their divine mandate to rule, or that they are about to die.  In the history of China, many emperors and kings have died or lost power after disasters.

More recently on September 27^th 1976, a magnitude 8 earthquake struck Tangshan city in Hebei China, leaving 250,000 dead, and a 20 mile radius in the city completely destroyed.  Six weeks later, Chairman Mao died.  Many Chinese believed that the earthquake was an omen.  That so many innocent people should die is a sign that misfortune will come to the ruler, who must bear the blame for offending the heavens.  The word “disaster”, after all, comes from the roots “dis”, not, and “aster”, stars, meaning, “not in the stars”.

Though we may find this mystical belief too superstitious, it is not without its rational basis.  After all, more than equal number of Chinese rulers in history have managed to mitigate the damages of natural disasters via active and preventive policies, such as building dams, canals, irrigation systems.  Their discipline and hard work, have prevented deaths from flood, famine, and even locusts.  As recently as about 300 years ago, the Emperor Chianglong instituted policies and reforms to fight the rampant famine in China, and his rule was eventually credited as one of the most successful in Chinese history.  Thus the Chinese belief in disasters as omens is one of pragmatic view on how good and efficient governments are in fighting disaster is directly related to how good and efficient they are overall.  Naturally, 100,000’s have died even in Chianglong’s time due to famine and drought.  But the Emperor was judged upon not by the numbers of deaths and number of the saved, but by what he did.  For Mao, it is not merely the quarter million who died in the earthquake, but more about all those millions who have already perished in the great famine of 1959, numbering in the 30 million.

So it is with this burden of my Chinese culture, that I set my mind to what has happened in New Orleans.  While I do not believe there is even such a thing as “divine mandate to rule”, I know the President certainly thinks he has one.  But let us ponder upon the specific meaning of what has happened.

First, I told you so, to the Conservatives.  I am happy to be proven correct on my thesis about the terrible management style of the Bush administration, which I wrote first on Cheers.org.  Even several American Conservative commentators, such as William Kristol have conceded on this point recently.  But to my sadness, it took the lives of 10,000 people to convince them of this point.  I only wish that the point could have been realized sooner and something could have been done about it.  The conceded opinions went around the big issue of overall mismanagement in the Bush administration, and went to the specifics on this particular disaster.  They say that Bush mismanaged the disaster response, because he “executed poorly”, and because Bush is not interested in “hitting singles and doubles” and more interested in “homeruns” (meaning that Bush only cares about big exposure PR type work, but not the small daily mundane planning and execution).  Precisely as I said, Bush is a Macro-manager who doesn’t want to care or know about the details.

The weakness of FEMA proved another one of my points on Bush administration, that it is extremely tunnel visioned and makes no contingency plans.  One, so much of FEMA fell under the bureaucracy of Homeland Security, that it prompted a huge exodus of skilled civil servants who are trained in emergency response.