Alas, there are some in Kansas who are not so fortunate, such as the residents of Greensburg, the town flattened by the tornado this weekend.

And oh, lucky them, they got drawn into the politics of it, as we, out here in our big old sparsely populated rectangular fly-over got drawn into a mini-reprise of Katrina finger-pointing and the politics of the war.

I'm sure the residents are, well, thrilled.

Governor Sebelius opened the exchange of unaimed fire by asserting that the State was short of gear for the Guard because of the war. "I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," she said in response to a press question yesterday. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace." She asserted that surrounding states, part of the mutual assistance compact, are also missing gear, and that equipment that could have been borrowed is over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, returned with his own shots, showing that Snow, and perhaps the White House, hadn't learned the lesson of Katrina and adjusted the ROE - instead of addressing the issue of missing equipment with facts and figures (which he may well not have had at his fingertips, certainly) or with statesmen-like words, he asserted that any slowness of response was... Sebelius'/Kansas' fault, and if she simply followed the guidelines of the Federal Response Plan - identify your shortages and request what you need to meet those shortages, well, that's *your* fault, Governor. "If you don't request it, you're not going to get it." was Snow's response to reporters asking about Governor's Sebelius' comments. "As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios," said Snow.

Both sides, having taken shots at each other, rather than the enemy (the disaster) took a breath and decided a little fire control was in order.

Snow, after having been grabbed by the lapels and shaken like a puppy dog (okay, I made that up) came back later in the day and clarified things a bit. He noted that in fact the state had requested several items that the federal government had already supplied — the radios, a mobile command center, urban search team, and was coordinating to get helos to Greenburg. He did stick a small shiv in the Governor's side by detailing a phone conversation yesterday between Sebelius and the Bush's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend. During that conversation, the Governor reputedly said she was pleased with the federal response to the tornado and the state had everything we need to deal with it. But he didn't twist it. Just pinked her a bit.

For her part, the Governor trotted out her spokesperson to make the "What I really meant" defense.

Spokesperson Nicole Corcoran averred the governor didn't mean to suggest that Kansas was unable to deal with the tornado damage. Rather, Governor Sebelius' comments about National Guard equipment were meant to be taken as a warning about the state's inability to handle additional disasters, such as another tornado or severe flooding, she said, neatly inoculating Sebelius if the Missouri river flooding gets out of hand. There have been some levee breaches downstream of here in flatter and more densely populated ground - here at Leavenworth we're up on a bluff overlooking the river, except for the narrow area where our steamboat landing used to be.

"We are doing absolutely fine right now," Corcoran said. "What the governor is talking about is down the road."

Governor Sebelius has been griping for a while about the war and the drain on National Guard manpower and equipment she clearly feels should be home in the state and not out gallivanting about the world and leaving their gear behind. She's continually griping the Pentagon is not replacing gear, such as the engineer vehicles that are most useful in disasters, quickly enough.

True enough. The Pentagon is focused on the external threats and fighting the war, though I'm guessing that NORTHCOM, the combatant command charged with the defense of the continental US is fully aware of where the shortages exist and has plans for coping. At least we did back in the day when I was a Federal disaster response planner.

Both sides were playing for a larger audience, and both sides fired on each other when the effort would have been better expended attacking the common problem. But that seems too hard for the political class these days.

Since the Adjutant General falls in the congressional district of Nancy Boyda (D, KS 2) who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, perhaps the Governor will push that lever to affect Administration priorities. The Congress has seen fit in the past to give the Pentagon money for things and programs it didn't want or felt it needed - and since the majority leadership of the Congress clearly feels the Commander-in-Chief and his executive agents aren't up to the task, perhaps they should seize the reins via the budget and their charge to raise and equip armies...

Just sayin'. Several print and broadcast media sources were used in feeding this rant.

Update: For a more troubling look at Governor Sebelius' performance in this issue, take a gander at Peter Boyles in NRO.