Congress should stop placing blame elsewhere

Re “Lawmakers Call for FEMA Restructuring,” Feb. 20

Is there anything more obscene than watching Congress shred its own creation, the Department of Homeland Security? To hear the lawmakers tell it, it’s all President Bush’s fault. Or Michael Brown’s. Or an act of God. The department’s failures had nothing to do with Congress, which wrote the law that created what it now calls “a joke.”

The Times tells us that homeland security was a cornerstone of Bush’s response to 9/11. But the Bush administration opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, accepting its formation only when it became obvious that these same grandstanding members of Congress would keep grandstanding until they had rammed it down its throat.

If creating the agency was a mistake that didn’t turn out as planned, let’s admit it and fix it. But let’s not pretend that Congress is coming to the rescue to fix a mess made by someone else.

PETER LEWIS

Trabuco Canyon