reality-based educator

This is scary but not surprising:

WASHINGTON - Although the Bush administration has warned repeatedly about the threat of a terrorist nuclear attack and spent more than $300 billion to protect the homeland, the government remains ill-prepared to respond to a nuclear catastrophe.

Experts and government documents suggest that, absent a major preparedness push, the U.S. response to a mushroom cloud could be worse than the debacle after Hurricane Katrina, possibly contributing to civil disorder and costing thousands of lives.

"The United States is unprepared to mitigate the consequences of a nuclear attack," Pentagon analyst John Brinkerhoff concluded in a July 31, 2005, draft of a confidential memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We were unable to find any group or office with a coherent approach to this very important aspect of homeland security. ...

"This is a bad situation. The threat of a nuclear attack is real, and action is needed now to learn how to deal with one."

Col. Jill Morgenthaler, Illinois' director of homeland security, said there's a "disconnect" between President Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's nuclear threat talk and the administration's actions.

"I don't see money being focused on actual response and mitigation to a nuclear threat," she said.

All these guys in the administration do is talk. They're good at the p.r., they're good at the propaganda, they're good at dumping a negative story they don't want covered into the abyss of late Friday night.

But when it comes to actual responses, real action, and intelligent decision-making, they're as clueless as any administration has ever been.