From "Bush seeks to federalize emergencies":

President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process. "It wouldn't be necessary to get a request from the governor or take other action," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. "This would be," he added, "more of an automatic trigger."

And, from the AP's "Hurricanes Spawn Debate on Military Role":

In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita _ and the federal government's sluggish response to the first _ President Bush is raising the possibility of putting the Pentagon in charge of search- and-rescue efforts for catastrophic natural disasters. The U.S. Northern Command, which began operations in October 2002 as the first command with the United States in its area of responsibility, assists the Federal Emergency Management Agency in disaster relief and has the organizational skills... The armed forces' unique chain of command would prove difficult to impose on elected civilian officials...

In both articles, about the only dissenting voices are from people widely regarded as loons, which tends to make me think that both the WashTimes and the AP support this Banana Republic-style power grab.

In the WT case, they turn to the ACLU. Their spokeshole at least has something interesting to say:

"Using the military in domestic law enforcement is generally a very bad idea... I'm afraid that it will have unforeseen consequences for civil liberties... The Posse Comitatus Act is sometimes criticized as some sort of obscure, centuries-old law... But you know, most of our liberties are centuries old. So that would be like saying the Bill of Rights is obscure and old... Our strict separation between military and civilian power is one of the things that separates us from Latin America, for example... Changing that would put us on a huge slippery slope."

As I briefly mentioned about 1.5 years ago, there seems to be a bit of a Latin American flavor to the Bush family, like they took a wrong turn at Honduras and wound up ruling this country instead of "San Marcos".

And, from the AP's report:

In a letter to Bush on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., said she was disturbed by the notion of rewriting laws that could result in active duty military operating as "police officers in America." She asked the president to clarify his comments.

Surely, both the WashTimes and the AP could find several people with more credibility to oppose this oh-so-convenient move by the Bush administration.

Previously: "Domestic Militarization: A Disaster in the Making" and "DC, media pushing greater military control for "safety" reasons".