Football game gone wrong
The question facing Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas at a news conference on Tuesday was whether he would call for an investigation into possible failures surrounding the deadly floods, which include a lack of state and local spending on flood control measures and warning systems.
To answer, Mr. Abbott said asking about blame was “the word choice of losers,” and then invoked a beloved Texas tradition — football — as he deflected questions about accountability for a disaster that has left at least 111 people dead and more than 170 missing.
“Every square inch of our state cares about football,” Mr. Abbott said, referring to the Friday night lights of high school fields and the state’s college and pro teams. “Every football team makes mistakes,” he added.
Extending the metaphor further, the governor said losing teams assigned blame while championship teams responded to mistakes by saying: “We got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again, that we win this game.”
Fucking hell. Lethal flooding is not a football game. It’s not like a football game. If you’re strolling in a national park and a bear comes rushing toward you you’re not facing an exciting sports challenge, you’re about the be the bear’s next meal. Distinctions of this type are really quite important.
Disaster preparedness is not like coaching football nor is it like playing football.
Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature would be investigating the flash floods in Central Texas and discussing how to prevent their recurrence when state lawmakers meet for a special session later this month.
But he and other prominent Republicans have pushed back against critics who have called for investigations into unfilled staff positions at National Weather Service offices in Texas, or a lack of emergency warning systems along the Guadalupe River.
Well fine, let’s all just throw our hands in the air and trust in “God” to save us from fires and earthquakes and droughts and tornadoes. With all the money we save we can buy Trump another big airplane.
Even if football was a good analogy, he has it all wrong. I don’t watch football, but my husband does, and it is common place for the coach or players on the losing team to note what they did wrong, and vow to fix it by the next game. It isn’t about assigning blame, it’s about taking responsibility.
Responsibility…Republicans love the word, but only when it applies to the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses. For themselves, not so much.
Adding to #1: the winning teams also assess what they did well and where they fell short, and what they need to do better. The championship teams are especially good at assessing their performance, warts and all.
I can understand the weak analogy that you don’t badmouth your players in public, but nobody was asking him to do that.
This no-one-is-accountable attitude goes way back. In 2005 (how time flies…), the vice-admiral in charge of the Iraq war prisoner abuse scandal said
Lewis Black reported this on the daily show. With his trademark sputtering outrage, he snarled
This is the best current source I could find for the admiral’s statement https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005/may/accountability-aint-what-it-used-be