Fri Sep 9 21:29:11 EDT 2005

As many of you know, I like to read newspapers and
websites from around the world.  The JWR is one of my
favorites.  I am not a Jew, I'm Irish. Unfortunately,
not from the tribe that made whiskey during
prohibition and turned the profits into a political
dynasty.  My people just drink the stuff.  Here's  a
great article from JWR.

Jewish World Review Sept. 9, 2005/ 5 Elul 5765 
Charles Krauthammer 

Where to Point the Fingers 
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In less enlightened
times there was no catastrophe independent of human
agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster
struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and
all felt better (except the witches and Jews). 

A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have
progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this
planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The
three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2)
the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the
unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn
sinner-in-chief George W. Bush. 

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever,
but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship
between global warming and the frequency and intensity
of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the
evacuation of New Orleans is not that National
Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans but
that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to
New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration
budget requests for New Orleans flood control during
the five Bush years exceed those of the five preceding
Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing
revenue would have been spent wisely by Congress,
targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and
that the reconstruction would have been completed in
time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when
you realize that, as The Washington Post noted, "the
levees that failed were already completed projects." 

Let's be clear. The author of this calamity was, first
and foremost, Nature (or if you prefer, Nature's G-d).
The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in
descending order of culpability by the following: 

1. The mayor of New Orleans. He knows the city. He
knows the danger. He knows that during Hurricane
Georges in 1998, the use of the Superdome was a
disaster and fully two-thirds of residents never got
out of the city. Nothing was done. He declared a
mandatory evacuation only 24 hours before Hurricane
Katrina hit. He did not even declare a voluntary
evacuation until the day before that, at 5 p.m. At
that time, he explained that he needed to study his
legal authority to call a mandatory evacuation and was
hesitating to do so lest the city be sued by hotels
and other businesses. 

2. The governor. It's her job to call up the National
Guard and get it to where it has to go. Where the
Guard was in the first few days is a mystery. Indeed,
she issued an authorization for the National Guard to
commandeer school buses to evacuate people on
Wednesday afternoon — more than two days after the
hurricane hit and after much of the fleet had already
drowned in its parking lots. 

3. The head of FEMA. Late, slow and in way over his
head. On Thursday, Sept. 2, he said on national
television that he didn't even know there were people
in the convention center, when anybody watching
television could see them there, destitute and
desperate. Maybe in his vast bureaucracy he can assign
three 20-year-olds to watch cable news and give him
updates every hour on what in hell is going on. 

4. The president. Late, slow, and simply out of tune
with the urgency and magnitude of the disaster. The
second he heard that the levees had been breached in
New Orleans, he should have canceled his schedule and
addressed the country on national television to
mobilize it both emotionally and physically to assist
in the disaster. His flyover on the way to Washington
was the worst possible symbolism. And his Friday visit
was so tone-deaf and politically disastrous that he
had to fly back three days later. 

5. Congress. Now as always playing holier-than-thou.
Perhaps it might ask itself who created the Department
of Homeland Security in the first place. The
congressional response to all crises is the same —
rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add
one extra layer. The past four years of DHS have been
spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and
real estate) instead of, say, a workable plan for as
predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane. 

6. The American people. They have made it impossible
for any politician to make any responsible energy
policy over the past 30 years — but that is a column
for another day. Now is not the time for constructive
suggestions. Now is the time for blame, recrimination
and sheer astonishment. Mayor Ray Nagin has announced
that, as bodies are still being found and as a public
health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is
sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a
little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels. Asked if it was
appropriate to party in these circumstances, he
responded: "New Orleans is a party town. Get over it."

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