President George W. Bush, in keeping with the promises he made during a televised speech to America last week, has named a member of his administration to lead an internal inquiry into the federal response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina.

However, political observers say the president’s refusal to appoint an independent counsel may be a thinly-veiled attempt to quell an onslaught of attacks on his credibility and the role his administration may have played in the devastating aftermath of the storm.

“This lacks credibility because the person is coming right out of Homeland Security,” Ronald Walters, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland at College Park, told BlackAmericaWeb.com in response to Tuesday’s announcement that Frances Fragos Townsend will lead the White House investigation of the administration’s Katrina response.

Townsend, a former federal prosecutor, is Bush’s domestic security adviser and reports to Michael Chertoff, director of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose director at the time Katrina hit, Michael Brown, resigned from the post last Monday after blistering criticism on FEMA’s lackluster performance post-hurricane.

“It’s Chertoff’s shop, and he was essentially responsible for delaying the order to go into New Orleans in the first place,” Walters said, adding that many sensitive issues pertaining to Chertoff’s actions in the wake of the hurricane may never come to light. “Given that situation, the fact that [Chertoff] was directly culpable, I think this investigation will be an absolving of the administration’s responsibility. I don’t see how there can be any other decision.

“Not in its current form can this be taken seriously,” Walters said. “I think those bodies will simply be a way of absolving the administration and continuing to lay the blame on [New Orleans Mayor] Ray Nagin and [Louisiana Governor] Kathleen Blanco, who are Democrats,” Walters said. “I just don’t think the public will have any confidence in this.”

Townsend, a Republican who worked in the Justice Department under former President Clinton, is known throughout Washington as an independent thinker, but her appointment may not pass the smell test with American citizens, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political science professor with the University of Chicago.

“Certainly, Ms. Townsend has a reputation for being fair-minded and independent, but the weight of this really requires something more independent,” Harris-Lacewell told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“What’s important is that we don’t necessarily discount that she might be a valuable, independent investigator, “Harris-Lacewell maintained. “But even if that is true, this is a very half-hearted attempt [by Bush] to even try to appear as being fair or even trying to appear as truly taking responsibility for the utter failure to cope with what happened in the Gulf, especially in New Orleans.”

According to The New York Times, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration instructed each cabinet secretary to select a senior official to work with Townsend on the inquiry. A meeting would be convened within a few days to begin discussions on the matter. The White House and members of the Republican-controlled Congress have balked at suggestions to have an independent full-scale commission similar to the one probing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“Democrats have chafed at this because they feel that if you put together a committee, the advantage is that this is a way of covering up any roles the Republicans might have had in this,” Walters said. “Democrats in the House have called for an outside, impartial commission to be put together in the vein of the 9/11 Commission, and the White House and House leadership has rejected that.

“If the 9/11 Commission had been put together on the basis of party advantage, one party or the other would have cause to say that’s not fair,” continued Walters. “In this case, the public should have the right to the same information from a panel that is thoroughly impartial. The only way to do that is to put together a commission that has equal reputation, and one that is of high stature, but that is not partisan.”

Calls made by BlackAmericaWeb.com to several key black Democrats Tuesday, including U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (Calif.), John Conyers (Mich.), and Chaka Fattah (Pa.), were not immediately returned. But Harris-Lacewell said she hopes that all Democrats, regardless of race, take a stand and demand that Bush take the investigation of what happened into another direction. However, she doesn’t have much faith that real pressure will be applied.

“As much of the fault lies with the Democrats as the Republicans. They should simply declare that this is insufficient and that this does not represent an independent counsel,” Harris-Lacewell said. “It may be time to start launching some independent inquiries independent of the White House. If the White House will not set up a fair, non-partisan investigation, it is incumbent upon the Congress to do so.”

Harris-Lacewell said it’ll be politicians from the affected areas that have a responsibility to see that things are done on the up-and-up.

“Although [Democrats] are not a majority of the House and Senate, they ought to find [Republican] allies from the local and state government of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama whose residents want answers,” Harris-Lacewell said. “This would be a time forge those coalitions.”