In round two of this week's Dust-Up, Richard Rider and Richard Carson square off over the differences between local and federal responses to the fires in San Diego.

For Rider, "the real issue is where the coordination and planning did NOT improve — the timely use of Navy, Marine and National Guard air assets":

It's popular to blame just the bureaucrats. But the truth is that the real responsibility rests with Gov. Schwarzenegger, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and especially our San Diego County Board of Supervisors. They were ill-prepared to move quickly to get the air assets active. They were too busy holding press conferences and patting themselves on the back.

Indeed, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, who represents parts of Orange County, said 24 hours after the fires started that "San Diego was eligible for air support and [local officials] didn't even know it."

Carson contends:

I could not agree with you more that (a) the federal response was disastrously slow; and that (b) the state and local government bears substantial responsibility for this slow response. We are also in agreement that FEMA was practically useless in the early days of the fire, and that the military were anxious to help out and should have been allowed to do so. You are, however, much too quick to let FEMA and the military off the hook, and you left out the U.S. Forest Service altogether.

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