Over-Ruled

Of course there were examples of constructive rule-breaking in the Katrina disaster zone. One of the more memorable involved the mayor of Gulfport, Miss., who, as reported in this newspaper,ordered his police chief to hot-wire a privately owned fuel truck and move it onto city property. One of the more incredible was the report in the New York Times about two Navy helicopter pilots who, after delivering food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast, heard a radio transmission saying helicopters were needed to rescue people in New Orleans. Out of radio range of their commanders and unable to get permission, they nevertheless went to the rescue of about 100 people. When they got back they were reprimanded, according to the article. One pilot was grounded and put in charge of overseeing a kennel holding the pets of evacuated service members.

There were others. Some search-and-rescue teams agreed to carry out pets -- against the rules -- because they knew it was the only way the animals' owners would leave.

But why weren't there more examples of ingenuity and initiative? Aren't Americans historically a people who don't bow to authority, who do things their own way? Isn't that part of the mythology of American restlessness, inventiveness and westward migration?

From what I've seen -- in daily life, as well as in my reporting -- two things have poisoned American decisiveness, at least in the public sector.

One is the consciousness of legal liability that has permeated our culture in the most astonishing way. The shortest, safest school outing requires signed releases. School nurses can't give children a tablet of ibuprofen without parental permission. Paper coffee cups warn me that coffee is hot. I bought a kayak a couple of years ago that came with a sticker -- "Important Notice! Read Before Use!" -- informing me that kayaks are used on water and that people can drown if they don't wear life jackets or don't know how to swim.

This don't-sue-me mindset can pop up anywhere, any time. A small example occurred last winter when I rode a military plane from Banda Aceh to Jakarta while reporting on the tsunami in Indonesia

The plane carried about 60 displaced Indonesians and 15 Westerners, including a security guard from the U.S. embassy who was accompanying several government contractors. We landed at 4 a.m. at the military airport in the pouring rain. Shaking with fever and anxious about how I would find my way to downtown Jakarta at that hour, I asked the embassy guard whether I could get a ride in the van that was waiting for him and the contractors.

"I don't know who you are," he said. "Anyway, our insurance doesn't cover people like you in the car."

The Hungarian ambassador to Indonesia, also on the plane and clearly a much bigger risk-taker, gave me a lift in his chauffeur-driven automobile.

Another reason many Americans in authority hesitate to make risky decisions is the fear of criticism and even public humiliation -- at the hands of the news media, late-night comedians and, now, the nonstop cacophony of the blogosphere.

Many members of my profession make a living, pay mortgages and send children to college in part by telling people how they could have done things better. We make a point about conflicts of interest, whether real or merely perceived, and whether or not they would make any difference. We get on the case of people who do too much, and we get on the case of people who do too little. We are obsessed with motive, and in general assume questionable competence or bad faith among public servants.

Except in the rare case where action is immediately deemed heroic and subjected to little criticism -- the behavior of fire and law enforcement officials on Sept. 11, 2001, is a notable example -- there are few functions of government that, in their minds at least, reporters, editorial writers and columnists couldn't do better. Not to mention Jon Stewart.