The aftermath — the awful aftermath — of hurricane Katrina is being covered from every possible angle by hordes of MSM and bloggers. I don't see much point in rehashing it all, but there is one aspect of this event that drives me to comment...
The MSM is full of stories that basically go along these lines: Federal incompetence caused New Orleans to be vulnerable to storm damage, Federal disaster reaction has been incompetent, there's a racial component to this (New Orleans residents are over 50% black), and all of this is President Bush's fault. The MSM is, of course, simply repeating the liberal's meme here that Bush is to blame for all of this (and everything else they think is wrong with the world).
And it's all poppycock, as even the most casual review of facts would reveal to anyone interested in knowing the truth. I am saddened every time I run into this "ignore the facts" phenomenon. In this case, it doesn't help the Katrina victims (and may hurt, if aid is misdirected in ignorance) and it doesn't help avoid the problem again (if the wrong cause is addressed, how will we ever fix this?). This is one example of a disaster bringing out the worst in people.
The facts I refer to are these:
New Orleans was not ready for a Category 4 hurricane because...they decided not to be. This is a well-documented decision made over 40 years ago and never revisited. The city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the then-federal administration made this decision together — and they made it against the recommendation of the Army Corps of Engineers. This was a calculated bet that the probability of a Category 4 hurricane was small enough that the very large cost of defending against it simply wasn't worth it. The MSM at the time applauded this decision, most especially the NYT.
The notorious alleged underfunding of the Army Corps of Engineers by the Bush administration...had no effect on the outcome of hurricane Katrina. Read the damage reports from hurricane Katrina carefully, and you will discover an interesting fact (rather shame-facedly verified by the Army Corps of Engineers): the sections of the levee that failed were the ones whose refurbishment had been completed. In other words, the new sections that were "fixed up" were the ones that failed. In the absence of any engineering analysis, one could make the argument that we'd have been better off leaving all the old levees alone.
Primary responsibility for the chaos of the first few days after Katrina hit...belongs to the city and state, not FEMA. FEMA is designed to be a secondary, national-scale emergency relief agency — not a prime agency with local assets and management in every community. In the U.S., emergency response and leadership starts at the local level and works upward to the Feds as a last resort. Therefore the primary responsibility for the lack of effective Katrina response management lies at the local level — and here the leadership was observably lacking. The stories of locally-originated stupidity abound, perhaps best illustrated by the flood-covered schoolbuses above.
Federal response was...faster than it has ever been before in the wake of a natural disaster. This is also a well-documented fact, not that you'd know it from the MSM reports. Less than four days after Katrina hit, the National Guard rolled into downtown New Orleans. After the most recent comparable disaster (hurricane Andrew) it took six days before the Feds mobilized.
Here's a roundup of posts illustrating or expanding on my points:
From CoyoteBlog, this observation (concerning the flooded schoolbusses):
The city declared a mandatory evacuation. Why then did it stick tens of thousands in the Superdome, right in the middle of town, rather than evacuate them with the assets they already owned in quantity?
And the ever-useful, nearly-always-correct Coyote's Law:
When the same set of facts can be explained equally well by
1. A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people
-OR -
2. Sustained stupidity and/or incompetence
Assume stupidity.
From Hugh Hewitt, on the moonbat responses to Katrina's aftermath — and on the more constructive response of President Bush:
I understand that an entertainer on the NBC special said some incredibly distasteful stuff about President Bush. No doubt a lot of folks will be pretty upset. I am taking my cue from the president, who spent the day in the company of a lot of folks who seem to have spent the last 48 hours doing nothing but blasting him in an attempt to escape fallout. President Bush said nothing about his critics, but kept the focus on the victims. W is in the business of getting the relief organized and saving lives. He isn't taking political shots, and I doubt he's going to, no matter how great the provocation. He's a good man and a great president, and his example should instruct his supporters to keep the focus on Americans in desperate need of help and hope.
From Chrenkoff, a roundup of the worst moonbat reaction, including this gem on Louis Farrakhan's comments:
Speaking to a large crowd in South Philadelphia last night, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan suggested that the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was divine punishment for the violence America had inflicted on Iraq.
"New Orleans is the first of the cities going to tumble down... unless America changes its course," Farrakhan said.
"It is the wickedness of the people of America and the government of America that is bringing the wrath of God down," he told several hundred people at Tinsley Temple United Methodist Church.
His remarks were enthusiastically received.
From Kate at Small Dead Animals, this hopeful and illustrative report from someone actually on the scene at the Astrodome:
As you might imagine I wanted to hear what it was like being in the Superdome. One teenage girl told me that it was terrifying when the shooting started. "It was the gangs," she said. Her mother said, "The people found the guy who was shooting and beat his ass and his ass needed beating." I found over and over again that people were as disgusted with the behavior of the thugs as the rest of us. I asked them if they were angry at the government. Not one I spoke to said they were. They were angry at the people who behaved badly. They were angry at the thugs with guns. They were angry with the people who threw trash everywhere and went to bathroom in public places.
In other words, they were mad at the right people, unlike our friends on the left.
From Alenda Lux, some commentary about a wide range of left-leaning responses, including this on Jesse Jackson's complaint about the MSM's emphasis on looters:
Wow, genius. It would be a lot easier if a large number of those people who you say the government has forgotten weren't shooting at military helicopters or killing cops. You'll have to forgive Red Cross officials for not wanting to get themselves killed trying to feed the people shooting at them.
From Shot In The Dark, commenting on the left's condemnation of the neighborhood in New Orleans that organized their own armed self-defense against looters:
The left are trotting out the usual pejoraties to refer to the guys who, under the American flag, secured their homes and families and neighborhoods (even after allowing for the fact that the photo is posed - it's the idea of self-defense that seems to enrage them so). It's all I expect from them anymore - this notion that if government can't provide law and order, then we must accept lawlessness and disorder without question until government gets around to the job; if government can't protect your life, liberty and property, well, you probably don't need any of them all that badly, now, do you?
Bull.
And finally, from Politburo Diktat, a terrific roundup of blogosphere response (just a small sample below):
On the left:
Americablog: Bush talking point: New Orleans deserved it.
Pandagon: Too bad those buses don’t stop in Crawford
On the right:
Bill Quick: Recommends the Salvation Army
Sissy Willis: points out animal relief
As for me, I'm just hoping for these things:
— that the relief workers are as successful as possible, and stay safe
— that President Bush stays focused on the real issues
— that the incompetent, corrupt local pols all get thrown out in the end
— that the U.S. citizenry has the good common sense to ignore the worst of the moonbat ravings
— that the political apparatus, at all levels, can learn some real lessons about the cost-effectiveness of adequate preparation
The story, as reported by The Age (Australia):
Went down to Paul Cingota's today and took some group pictures of the agility class that included Pete and Trudy. The picture is a going-away present from the group, because Pete and Trudy are moving — to the Bahamas! There is a medium-sized version of this image