President Bush is out claiming today that Congress should consider granting him more authority to use the military in times of catastrophic natural disasters.

As I mentioned last week, this important op ed points out that the President already has all the authority that he needs.  In the case of Katrina, it was his leadership ability that was lacking.

From the Op Ed:

President Bush claimed last week that Hurricane Katrina made clear that "greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces" would be necessary to deal with future natural disasters or terrorists attacks.

The president of the United States, however, has all the legal authority he needs to mount a robust federal response to a natural disaster or terrorist attack, including the use of the armed forces. The fiasco resulting from Katrina was caused not by the lack of legal authorities, but by a failure to assert federal leadership at an early stage of the disaster, a lack of pre-disaster planning to coordinate the activities of all levels of government and a basic misunderstanding at the state and local level of the proper role of the armed forces in domestic crisis management.

Bush should be ashamed of himself for basically trying to pretend that the NRP doesn't even exist, just so he can draw attention away from his Post-Katrina Recovery Disaster.