Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson

It was easy in these arguments to see the way people thought of agencies in terms of human qualities, so that the agencies ended up behaving in the world like individuals in terms of power, will, skills, and effectiveness. Some were amazingly effective for their size, others were permanently hampered by personality and history.

p. 94

I like the metaphor of the individual to understand the government's agencies. Can FEMA ever get beyond its personal history? And we wonder why Myanmar doesn't want our emergency response teams? And we will think it is politics, rather than images of New Orleans on the net. LOL