Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Sunday, Sept. 25, 2005 1:20 a.m. EDT
'Independent' Katrina Expert has Clinton Pedigree
If one of the media's favorite "independent" disaster experts looks familiar as he bashes and trashes the Bush administration for bungling the response to Hurricane Katrina, that's because he is.
Since Katrina devastated New Orleans nearly a month ago, Dr. Irwin Redlener, head of something called the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, has been the subject of nearly two dozen TV interviews and media reports, including appearances on NBC's "Today Show," ABC's "World News Tonight" and "Prime Time Live" - as well as several pitstops at CNN in between.
And despite his "nonpartisan" credentials as a pediatric expert at Columbia University, Redlener doesn't seem particularly shy when it comes to playing the Katrina blame game.
"We've spent billions of dollars since 9/11 on preparedness," he complained to CNN's Aaron Brown two days after New Orleans' levees broke.
"There's been no accountability whatsoever . . . I've been working in public health for 30 years. I've never seen so much work with so little accountability and so little to show for it. It's actually stunning."
Redlener continued the blame game a few days later on NBC's "Today Show," telling Katie Couric: "We have a lot of soul searching to do about what's happened over these last four years, especially since 9/11."
Of course, neither Brown nor Couric nor any of the other hosts who gave Dr. Redlener a platform to point fingers at the White House bothered to mention his ties to the Clinton administration, where he served as pediatric spinmeister-in-chief during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco.
Back then, Redlener was wearing a different hat, as founder of something called The Children's Health Fund.
Invoking his expertise in child psychology, the future hurricane disaster expert created a media firestorm by announcing that the six-year-old Cuban boat boy was being abused by the Miami relatives who took him in after his mother died trying to get him to America.
"Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive," Redlener said, in a letter to the Clinton Immigration and Naturalization Service that was immediately released to the press.
Appearing with Ms. Couric after the family released a videotape showing Elian proclaiming his desire to not to be returned to Cuba, Redlener announced:
"I think the child's being extremely manipulated. And, in fact, the videotape looks exactly like we might see in a hostage situation. We think the child needs to be rescued from there."
Four days after his "Today Show" appearance, Dr. Redlener got his wish - when a machine-gun toting federal SWAT team stormed Elian's home and kidnapped him after tear gassing his family.
The "rescue" was captured for posterity in an Associated Press photo showing the first-grader trembling with fear as one of the federales threatened him with an assault rifle.
The day after the traumatic raid, however, Dr. Redlener's concerns about hostage taking and psychological abuse seemed to have miracualously evaporated.
"I'm actually very happy," he told New York's Journal News. "I think this was a very safe return. Nobody got hurt, and it was immediately followed by a very joyful reunion with his father."
Redlener's role as a White House propagandist in the Elian case drew fire from his peers, with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons complaining in a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno.
Describing Redlener as "a well-known pediatrician with longstanding political ties to President Clinton and the First Lady," AAPS said:
"We are appalled that the Department of Justice and the INS may have relied on the armchair diagnosis of an Administration operative in making their decision to go ahead with a frightening raid in the dark." Judging from the way Dr. Redlener has been welcomed back to comment on Katrina, however, his "independent" reputation remains intact - at least a s far as the media is concerned.
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