Over-Ruled

While this critic-and-second-guesser role is an important part of journalism, in practice there's too much of it, and it comes at a price. The price is that people have become afraid to do things that fall outside their job description without explicit permission and implied forgiveness for possible bad outcomes.

Five days after the hurricane, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official ordered Mark N. Perlmutter, a 50-year-old orthopedic surgeon from Pennsylvania, to stop treating patients on the tarmac of the New Orleans airport because he had not filled out the proper paperwork. He protested, explaining that the woman he had just diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis might die without immediate intravenous fluids and insulin. But he was led away. The official said to him, "We cannot guarantee tort liability protection," Perlmutter told me yesterday.

After learning that on-site certification wasn't yet possible, the doctor was allowed to return to the tarmac and get his medical instruments. The woman, who was semi-conscious when he'd first seen her, was dead, Perlmutter said. He then flew to Baton Rouge in a helicopter and got certified, a process he said "took about two minutes."

This is an extreme example of rule-following -- which is why it made got news coverage. There are other examples.

One of them was the behavior of the 769th and 527th engineering battalions of the Louisiana National Guard, which were housed at the Convention Center when that building became an island of deprivation, chaos and lawlessness.

The 350 armed soldiers knew enough about what was going on to barricade their part of the building against the mob, and to come and go from a side door so few people would know of their presence. Later, they said no one had told them to restore order in the convention center. That's bad enough (and I know this is the know-it-all reporter talking). What's worse is that they didn't do it without being asked.

"The idea of helping with the convention center never came up. We were preparing ourselves for the next mission," said the 769th commander, Maj. Keith Waddell, according to a Washington Post report.

This was an engineering battalion, not trained in quelling civil disturbance. Fair enough. Then why issue them rifles, ammunition and helmets? These weren't U.S. troops, whose role in local law enforcement is circumscribed by federal law. This was a local Guard unit. Isn't the common denominator of being part of the state militia -- in whatever function -- that you are expected to keep order at times of popular rebellion?

Certainly the prospect of entering a crowded hall containing armed men who might shoot at you in the dark behind the protective screen of hundreds of innocent civilians is terrifying. It is also a situation that very possibly could result in the death of guardsmen. But isn't this a risk that people who join the guard agree to face?

The idea "never even came up"? I personally doubt this. But if it's true, it makes the whole thing even more astounding.

By now, New Orleans appears to have become an extremely orderly place. At nearly every corner, soldiers stand ready to check ID. Rules are followed punctiliously.

Everyone coloring inside the lines -- it's a great system until the wind starts blowing really, really hard.

Author's e-mail:

browndm@washpost.com

David Brown covers science and medicine for The Post.