Overzealous Katrina

Some of my good friends have been calling me or emailing me with jabs at President Bush and his "handling" of the natural disaster. As for me, I believe that one of the limited roles of the President is to protect this country from all threats foreign and domestic. I do not think he should expand the power of government at the expense of state or individual liberties, and I certainly do not think he should have all the answers. Yet, once again, he is being decried for his handling of the crisis-- a multi-faceted crisis that is as impossible to fully grasp as it is, you would think, to POINT FINGERS ABOUT. But there is NO SHORTAGE OF PEOPLE POINTING FINGERS.

Given all the sides of this, and the fact that it was a CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE, one would imagine that there was something the President could have done but didn't. The question is: was there something the President SHOULD have done, but didn't? I don't think an obvious answer on that has been revealed yet. If you know, I would like to know. Feel free to leave a comment.

I liked the post at Amy Ridenour. She offers some suggestions of her own on relief and critiques others', including Michael Savage:

Hugh Hewitt's advice here however, makes 100 times more sense than Michael Savage's lunatic idea to "Impose price controls on gasoline for 90 days." Great idea, and I mean that with all the sarcasm my keyboard can muster. Let's ARTIFICALLY INFLATE THE DEMAND FOR GASOLINE as a way to deal with a gasoline supply disruption. REAL GOOD IDEA. Here's one only slightly dumber: Pray for rain in New Orleans.

Another insightful post comes from Democracy Project, highlighting the ludicrous inadequacy of the NYTimes editorial board to confront the world known as reality, and then discussing the tepid but forward movement on the part of the Washington Post's perceptions:

Both camps miss the simpler explanation. The fault, more simply, lays in both the limitations of any government to foresee and adequately prepare for all contingencies, compounded by the stubborn failure of the city and state leadership to more energetically prepare and their resistance to enthusiastically cooperate with federal authorities. Race and political affiliation has far less to do with either than sheer inadequacy and self-defensive CYA. It was not a Rudy Guiliani moment.

As the Washington Post editorial points out, “Tragically, authorities in New Orleans were aware of this problem. Certainly the numbers were known.” A University of New Orleans survey conducted last year of city residents’ evacuation plans found that 20% would stay at home, even during a major storm. (Neither I nor newspapers have been able to yet find the text of the study online.) There were plans made to educate these people and ease their evacuation. However, as the Washington Post editorial continues, “Unfortunately, none of these plans was advanced enough to have had much impact this week.” The editorial continues that, “Instead the city decided to use the Superdome as a ‘shelter of last resort.’ Following that decision a major mistake was made: Not enough food, water or portable toilets were made available…”

The Washington Post editorial does not point out that the city, also, failed to use its large fleet of school buses to evacuate residents in need, instead leaving the buses in their storage yard to be flooded.

The Washington Post editorial does not point out that last Sunday President Bush had to personally phone Governor Blanco to urge her to declare a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. It, also, does not point out that Governor Blanco refused to allow a federal takeover of the evacuation to consolidate command, or that Louisiana waited until last Wednesday to follow-up on a multi-state assistance compact, or that as of Saturday Governor Blanco had still not declared a state of emergency. Instead, on Saturday, Governor Blanco hired the former Clinton administration FEMA director to advise her and, aside from any common-sense James Lee Witt may bring her, she may find some insulation from her obstinacy to work jointly for the good of her state.

With Hillary Clinton already moving to take point on this effort to capitalize in a very negative way on this disaster, whereas we should be learning from this disaster, this could be a very long, hard slog.