Of all the left-leaning pundits on CNN, Donna Brazile comes across as the most level-headed and the least smug, in part because the charismatic and sage Democratic strategist identifies herself as such and doesn’t pretend something she’s not (i.e., a nonpartisan observer).  A few others may claim to be dispassionate, but they wear their liberal ideology on their sleeve.

And Brazile, despite her partisan leanings, does give Republicans credit where it is due as she did earlier today on CNN”s web-page, departing from the media-crafted narrative of the immediate past president’s incompetence in responding to the Katrina catastrophe:

Despite the many differences I had with former President George W. Bush on a range of public policy issues, or as he called them, “decision points,” I found common ground with him in one area, simply because we decided to put aside partisanship and do something good.

Hurricane Katrina’s devastation and the bungled rescue efforts are seared in the national memory. Bush’s ”heckuva job” remark turned into a byword for government incompetence and public distrust. The shallowness of it coming at such a terrible and low point left deep wounds that are still healing. That was what it was.

Tapped in 2005 by the then-governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, “to serve on the state’s commission overseeing the long-term recovery from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina,” Brazile saw more than just that one inopportune comment:

Bush understood the need for civility. I joined him despite my frustration because the need was too great for finger-pointing and blame-making. (more…)

Caught this on Drudge last night:

Let me start by saying that I don’t blame President Obama for the problems plaguing the Big Apple in the aftermath of Sandy. But, bear in mind, how quick the legacy media were, seven years ago, to blame George W. Bush for the problems plaguing the Big Easy in the aftermath of Katrina.

We heard all sorts of horror stories, most of them untrue, about the goings-on at the Superdome, most supposedly Bush’s fault.  So, why is Drudge the only one linking the desperate situation in parts of Manhattan to the president?

And when Katrina hit, the city most impacted was governed by a Democratic Mayor, the state by a Democratic Governor.

When Sandy hit, New York had a Mayor who would endorse Obama, the state has a Democratic Governor.

Over at the American Thinker, J. James Estrada contends that the electrical outages might not have happened had congressional Democrats not blocked a Bush administration plan to upgrade the nation’s electrical grid.  (Via our reader Former Left-Leaning Lesbian.)

RELATED: BLOOMBERG DIVERTS FOOD, GENERATORS FROM DEVASTATED STATEN ISLAND TO NYC MARATHON

ALSO RELATED: Applying Bush/Katrina rules to Obama/Sandy

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE:  Anderson Cooper is reporting the crisis on Staten Island.  (Via Instapundit.)

FROM INSTAPUNDIT:

BARACK OBAMA’S KATRINA, WITH BLOOMBERG IN THE ROLE OF RAY NAGIN? This Depressing NBC Segment On Staten Island Could Change The Way The World Sees Hurricane Sandy. “This NBC segment on the situation this week on Staten Island is awful, and makes the response look horrible.”

It is perhaps instructive that Hurricane Irene threatened to devastate the East Coast almost exactly six years after Katrina did indeed devastate the Gulf Coast in and around New Orleans.

Now, to be sure, then-President George W. Bush did make his share of blunders in responding to the storm, perhaps his greatest being that he respected our federal system and trusted local authorities, who traditionally direct the response to handle natural disasters.  The federal government merely plays a supporting role.

“One hundred years ago,” John Hinderaker wrote yesterday about the incumbent’s pretense of taking charge of hurricane relief efforts

. . . people understood that the president had nothing to do with hurricanes. Now, the president is expected to pretend to have control over more or less everything. This has something to do with the inexorable expansion of federal power, and also something to do with the dumbing-down of the American people.

Six years ago, our friends in the mainstream media used this expectation of of presidential responsibility over disaster relief to prove that the then-incumbent was the incompetent they knew him to be.  His image never recovered from their assault (though it just might have had he then had a press secretary who was not in a perpetual “defensive crouch“).

As the facts trickled out, it became increasingly clear that local authorities botched relief efforts in Louisiana.  Recall, that the storm devastated coastal regions in Mississippi and Alabama, but the chaos centered around Louisiana.   The then-Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, dilly-dallied before declining the “dual-hat” command structure to accommodate her concerns about “federalizing the response“.   President Bush was concerned about overstepping his bounds and not interfering with state responsibilities.

And because of those concerns for our federal structure, he was blamed for the Democratic governor’s failures. (more…)

. . .  correcting all errors made by the (evil and) incompetent George W. Bush (and his bungling team).

Nagin and Brown Agree: US Not Prepared for Another Katrina

Perhaps, it was the serendipity of catching this headline, 3 officers plead not guilty in Katrina shootings, while pondering the media’s comparatively* kid-glove treatment of the Administration’s reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill that reminded me just how jaundiced was their coverage of Katrina.

Here we have a story of the misconduct of New Orleans police officers, individuals answerable to municipal, not federal, authorities, yet all too many media outlets covered the story as if the Bush White House and the Republican’s appointees were entirely responsible for the mayhem in The Big Easy in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings, which happened in the midst of another of the scorching days after Katrina. Bodies floated in filthy flood waters. Shots could be heard throughout the city, and many believed they were aimed at the endless stream of helicopters, the police, the rescue crews.

This all relates to the overheated media coverage of Katrina, with many false stories making their way to the public through the media, such as at the “legend” of shot being fired at helicopters.  This is not to excuse the Administration for some of the bungled federal efforts at relief, but to point out that officials from other levels of government responded in a manner which compromised relief efforts and conributed to the chaos.

This story serves to remind us that municipal officials did not always respond in a professional manner, yet somehow, somewhere a narrative was created of George W. Bush’s almost exclusive incompetence.

* (more…)

Before I left LA, I had wanted to post on the contrasting narratives of Katrina and the Gulf Oil spill, but due to the press of a number of obligations, did not get the chance to do so to the degree that I would have liked.  And doubt I will be able to address this is in a timely matter.

Fortunately, some other bloggers have been looking into the matter, one of whom is the ever-insightful Jim Geraghty who offers:

The dominant narrative of Katrina made no room for the normal human errors and snafus that mark any response to a giant problem; righties are naturally objecting to the sudden reinstatement of the “Hey, sometimes stuff happens, what can you do?” standard under a Democratic president.

Read the whole thing.  Jim also offers links to other insightful observations.

It does seem that the MSM used Katrina to do what they had failed to do in 2004, bring down George W. Bush.  And with that good man, but flawed executive, then having an inept communications operation, they succeeded.  (If not in throwing him out of office, in at least, portraying him as inept.)

RELATED:  ”OBAMA’S KATRINA: ’The media started riding Bush about his response to Katrina within a couple of days. Obama got a pass for over a month.’”

A piece by Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner reminds me of something I read about the Katrina disaster:

Why didn’t federal officials implement an oil spill clean up plan they’ve had on the books since 1994 as soon as possible after crude began pumping into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and sinking of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform 53 miles south of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico?

The Mobile Register reports that Ron Gouget, who formerly managed the oil spill cleanup department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as a similar unit for the state of Louisiana, is criticizing the Obama White House’s failure to act according to existing government plans in the event of a spill in the area now being deluged with thousands of barrels of crude oil every day.

Emphasis added.

Who failed to follow an existing government plan as a hurricane now nearly five years ago, not an oil slick, threatened to make landfall on the Gulf coast?  Was it the Bush Administration?  Oh yes, that’s right, it wasn’t a Republican who failed to follow a government plan, but a Democrat.  It was ten-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin who failed to follow his own evacuation plan.

Remember these:

Now, a number of conservative pundits and libertarian bloggers and even headline writers at the New York Times are comparing the Gulf Oil Spill to Katrina.  And there are numerous similarities.  A crisis coming from the Gulf, with Louisiana most severely hit.  And while the Administration has clearly blundered, acting too slowly, it was not entirely to blame for the mishap.

Even the New York Times and Bill Maher (Bill Maher!) have chastised the Administration, with the latter asking, “Why isn’t Barack Obama getting more s–t’ for the oil spill in the Gulf?”

In asking the question, he’s pretty much giving us the answer.  The president is not getting more grief for the spill for the same reason reporters didn’t catch l’Affaire Poney Soyeux (John Edwards’ mistress story):  He’s a Democrat.

We would see more hyperventilating news anchors and more screaming headlines a Republican president acted exactly as Obama had.  And they’d ramp up the stuff about W carrying water for the oil companies.

Over the past decade, while the state of Florida has often been hit hard with hurricanes, few complaints were heard about the quality and speed of government relief efforts.  Many have credited the immediate past governor of the Sunshine State, Jeb Bush, for his hurricane response program.

Part of that good man’s administrative expertise was putting the right men and women into the right jobs, a quality which oftentimes distinguished him from his elder brother.  In 2001, the younger Bush tapped Craig Fugate to head Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.  Bush’s successor Charlie Crist, to his credit, kept Fugate on.

Now, President Obama is bringing that Bush appointee to Washington, nominating him to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  Smart move.  Given that state officials are the first responders to any catastrophe, it helps to have a man who has been on the front lines of relief efforts.

He’ll be well suited to coordinate a national effort and help whip the various state agencies into shape so they’re better prepared to face the next disaster than was Louisiana in 2005.

Kudos, Mr. President.  Fugate’s a good pick.  We can been pretty confident he’ll serve the nation as well as he served the Sunshine State.

When two readers, within fifteen minutes, alert you to the same post, I always make sure to check it out.  And they were right.  This one is worthy of a link.

Michelle Malkin received a letter from a reader in Paducah, Kentucky who wrote to tell her just how bad things were in the Bluegrass State, “The situation is much more depressing for those who live in the rural area of our region as utility poles were snapped in half by the weight of the ice all over far Western Kentucky.”  According to the Paducah Sun:

The word from utility workers with direct Katrina experience is that ice storm devastation to western Kentucky’s power grid is worse than that inflicted by the infamous Gulf Coast hurricane.

“We’ve got linemen here from southern Mississippi who were there when Katrina hit, who worked the area after the hurricane,” said Kevin Inglish, a spokesman for West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corp.”

What stands out Michelle’s correspondent is that “no news anchors from any of the Big 3 or any cable news channel including Fox News” have flown in to cover the devastation as they ran to cover Katrina.

The president has yet to visit the region.

If you want to help out, FEMA lists volunteer agencies providing relief efforts.

Michelle details some of the relief efforts here.

Related:  Storm Hits Kentucky, FEMA Absent, Media Silent

UPDATE from Bruce (GayPatriot):   President Obama Reads Children’s Book While Poor White Folks in Kentucky Ignored After Natural Disaster.

Hey, this scene looks familiar…. My Pet Goat, Obama Style!  (h/t - Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Nominee, Ann Althouse)

Who would have thought that President Obama would make President Jimmy Carter look competent and in-touch?

Days after a major storm hits, the death toll remains unknown, relief has still not reached areas impacted by the disaster. People are running short of food, some homes uninhabitable.  Many people are complaining about the slow response “from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” The president hasn’t visited the region.

Sound like Katrina in 2005.  Well, it’s Kentucky this week.  Oh, and another thing the Bluegrass state disaster has is in common with Hurricane Katrina: the state hit hardest had a Democratic governor at the time of the catastrophe.

And yet, where’s the media giving us minute-by-minute coverage of how bad things are and how much wanting the federal response?

Recall, four years ago, how up in arms they were when then-President Bush didn’t react forcefully enough to the tsunami that lashed south Asia? Well, while this disaster is not nearly as catastrophic, according to the White House, all that President Obama has done is to sign statements declaring the state a disaster area.

No public statement of support (at least not as I write this). Shouldn’t the media be outraged? Shouldn’t we be outraged at his indifference?

Oh yea, he’s a Democrat and is, by definition, compassionate. It’s just Republicans who are heartless.

(H/t Instapundit.)

UPDATE:  The Anchoress asks “why isn’t the president down there, hugging people? Why was he schmoozing congress with steak dinners* while people were suffering?” Read the whole thing.

Instapundit reader C.J. Burch observes, “What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think.”

UPDATE FROM Bruce (GayPatriot): Where is the outrage from Kanye West and Spike Lee?  What does Barack Obama have against poor white people in Kentucky?!?!

UP-UPDATE FROM Dan: Bruce, have you noted that none of our critics in the comments section have taken issue with my basic point about the Administration’s lackluster response to the disaster and the MSM’s silence?

UP-UP-UPDATE from Bruce (GP): Dan….. and this surprises you, how?   The basic strategy that liberals use in public discourse is to avoid the original question, then lie and then make up new facts and then revise history.  Our critics do it well.

UP-UP-UP-UPDATE from Dan Steve Gill asks, “where is President Obama?”

While millions are struggling were struggling with the dangerous and deadly icy conditions President Obama had the thermostat in the Oval Office cranked up like a “hothouse” growing orchids. On Thursday — while millions in Tennessee and Kentucky did not have access to shelter or food — Obama hosted a cocktail party at the White House and served up fancy martinis and an appetizer menu that featured mouthwatering wagyu steak costing $100 a pound.

He also wonders where’s the outrage?

It ain’t Obama….

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It looks like the folks who really know about weather were right:  the meterologists that are guided by science and not by ideology. 

If you recall, over the past two years (since Katrina) the scientific weather experts (again… they are called meterologists)  including former Hurricane Center directors, were saying we were coming to the end of a 20-Year Hurricane Cycle.

They, not Al Gore, were right.  2006 and 2007 have been some of the lowest activity level for Atlantic Hurricanes in HISTORY.

With October nearly done circling the drain, I figure it is about time to bring out the broom : Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone activity is at historically low levels .

In fact, September 2007 suffered the lowest ACE since 1977 ! Even scarier, so far 2006 and 2007 have the lowest October ACE since 1976 and 1977.  And, unnaturally, Sept-Oct 2007 is the lowest since 1977.

Yet, the tropical cyclone season was not shaping up to be such a ghastly bust.  For about a week in June, NH ACE was exceeding climatology but then bit the proverbial dust until mid-August when a noticeable comeback ensued. It has been downhill since.

So, a naysayer over at the Huffington Post or the Daily Green may wonder why we use such metrics such as ACE/PDI or Tropical Cyclone days when we could use better metrics like number of category 5′s making landfall or storms that have intensified the fastest or perhaps number of pumpkins.

There are even some spooky hints that the 2007 (Atlantic) Tropical Cyclone season is being “spun” to appear “dead” and inconsistent with the predominant trend.  Also, a “storm pundit” would remind that us that the year is not in the grave and we may see hyper-activity (a.k.a. global warming proof) to come.

*cue dramatic music*

Global Warming enters the room with flowing black cape behind:  “Dammit all to Hell.  How am I supposed to live up to my end of the bargain with Al Gore when God keeps throwing us curve balls?  Gore and I will never be able to completely brainwash those stupid humans at this rate!”

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Nope, not Iraq.  Nope, not Philadelphia.  Nope, not New Orleans…

Mexico.  It sounds like a reign of al-Qaeda-like terror is breaking out south of our border!

A combination of “explosive devices”, 9mm pistols, AK-47′s and AR-15′s have left 21 dead and 10 wounded throughout Mexico in the past 24 hours.

8 in Guerrero
5 in Chihuahua
3 in México State
2 in Sinaloa
1 in Tlaxcala
2 in Tijuana
21 Total

In addition, 3 police stations were attacked with explosive devices, 2 in Guerrero and one in Tecpan de Galeana, leaving 2 police officers wounded.

Some notes of prurient interest:

In Apizaco, Tlaxcala, a fellow waited for his appointment in attorney Joaquín Suárez García’s office, chatting with Suárez García’s secretary. When the counselor arrived, they went into his office where seconds later his client left him slumped over his desk, dead.

Of the 21 executed, 4 were taxi drivers. One of them died in a hail of bullets from several masked men wearing body armor and weilding AK-47′s. A protest over high taxi fares, perhaps? What’s with this, anyway? They’ve been machine gunning taxi drivers all over the country since the first of the year. The authorities haven’t said much, so I’ll have to assume that the drug cartels use local taxis to ferry shipments and money from point A to point B. Then they come back to eliminate the drivers — loose lips sink ships — or as punishment for inventory losses.

But this story wasn’t in the New York Times today.  Nor did Ms. Couric report it last night.  But it sounds very much like the kind of “end of the world” reporting we get from Iraq every day doesn’t it.

And Senator Lucy Graham (D-SC) wonders why conservatives want to seal the border FIRST.

By the way, the Drive-By Media isn’t reporting this news much either…

New Orleans’ 162 murders last year made the city the nation’s murder capital, with a murder rate that was anywhere from one-third again to two-thirds-again higher than the next-highest, in Gary, Ind., and Detroit.

“We have to look at what this does to the city, what it does to the economy, and what will happen if we don’t get it under control,” said Anthony Radosti, vice president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group that often critiques the New Orleans Police Department. “These homicides are striking fear into certain communities.

“By year’s end, the population will be increased; the National Guard and the State Police may be gone,” he said Monday. “We have to ask, ‘What is the plan of action for the remainder of the year?’”

Hey…. I’m all for imposing the Pelosi Doctrine for New Orleans, too.   Let’s withdraw our troops from the civil war so we can fight the real terrorists.  Unless the duly re-elected government of Mayor Ray Nagin meets some political benchmarks, of course.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

From New Orleans.

Nine people shot in less than seven hours 

Six people were shot inside a Mid-City nightclub Friday morning just hours after a triple shooting in Bywater.

Just hours before, a triple shooting in the Bywater area left two people dead.

Mayor Ray Nagin was also at the crime scene Thursday night and issued the following statement on the murders:

“Last month, I stated that one murder is too many in our community, our fragile city that is still on the journey to recovery.  Tonight, I am deeply saddened that our young people continue dying in our streets.”

I am too, Mayor Nagin.  We need to get out of New Orleans now!  The future of freedom and democracy in that war-torn city isn’t worth the loss of more American lives.

And by the way, how come Florida, Alabama and Mississippi haven’t fallen to the post-Katrina Insurgents like New Orleans has???

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A friend of mine who lives in Denver forwarded me this email. I think it is becoming a chain mail thing, but I loved the message!

****************

Up here, in the “Mile-Hi City”, we just recovered from a Historic event— may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to tens of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come. FEMA did nothing. No one howled for the government. No one blamed the government. No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else. Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit – or report on this Category 5 snowstorm as they did Katrina.  No Larry King, No Bill O’Reilly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera. No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.  No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.  No one looted.  Nobody – I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.  Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.   Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.  The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.  Families took in the stranded people – total strangers.  We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.  We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.  We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.

Even though a Category “5″ blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

Maybe SOME people (Like New Orleans and Wash. DC freeloaders) will get the message. The world does not owe you a living. The Government and Tax dollars are not your insurance company.

I couldn’t have said it any better.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Is this a product of the new spirit of partnership and bi-partisanship that Nancy Pelosi was talking about? (h/t – HotAir)

Transcript of US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) accusing President Bush of “ethnic cleansing”:

“And, what I believe is, at this point you’re not talking about [inaudible], but what you’re talking about is, I think, a [inaudible], what you’re talking about is when you simply, in a calculated way, refuse to do anything for well over a year … [inaudible] … and [stuttering] I, I, the policy I think here is ethnic cleansing by inaction.

“It’s not ethnic cleansing in the sense that they’re killing people or [driving] people out, but what we need to recognize here is that, they’re in this happy position for them, where the federal government does nothing, as they become richer and richer, because well not only black people needed housing assistance, but they were [predominantly poor, who did it], to simply not do anything to alleviate this housing crisis which … was being exacerbated by Katrina … [inaudible] they, they, they let the hurricane do the ethnic cleansing, because then they’re, all they’re doing is not resisting it, that’s why I call ethnic cleansing by inaction, and I know that there are people who were very happy that, as a result, … [inaudible] … [so that] Louisiana would become a more widely Republican [city] … [inaudible] … because if you lose 100,000 black voters … then you have to take a state that was prodominately Republican and made it [inaudible].”

Hey, Rep. Frank…. you are part of the thugs gang in charge now!  Back up your inflammatory statements with facts or apologize to the President and our nation.

So folks, is this what we have to look forward to with the Democrats in charge of Congress?  Even more anti-American, baseless lying on a daily basis?

If anyone is doing ethnic cleansing, it is the residents of New Orleans themselves.  Gateway Pundit reports that New Orleans has a murder rate TEN TIMES the national average.  And NOLA’s violent death rate in 2006 is higher than all of Iraq.

Call Pelosi and Reid!  We need to surrender from the War In Louisiana immediately!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Paul at Wizbang has an excellent and comprehensive look at the cover-up, then admittance, by the US Corps of Engineers that the hurricane didn’t cause the flooding in New Orleans.   There is even video proving his case!

The structural flaws of the levees themselves caused the flooding.  The storm just hastened the inevitable collapse of the walls the kept back the water.  The approach of Katrina and the evacuation of many (if not all) of the city resulted in tens-of-thousands of people living through the breach versus had the inevitable levee breach occurred suddenly with no warning — which Paul suggests was going to happen at some point anyway.

In the months since Katrina, we’ve learned that the storm was a Category 1 by the time she hit New Orleans. No “Super Hurricane,” just an average storm. We’ve also learned that the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System was not overwhelmed by Katrina, it collapsed. Causing the Corps of Engineers admit they flooded New Orleans not Katrina… An admission that got scant little media coverage. The Great Flood of New Orleans was not a natural disaster but a man made one.

The reason the Corps finally had to admit responsibility was that the floodwall that failed -flooding 70% of the city- basically collapsed under its own weight. It was undeniable. The Corps tried for months to claim the water came over the top of the floodwall and washed it away from the backside. (Which would make it Congress’s fault) Everyone who has seen the break or looked at the surge data knew this was a lie; that the wall suffered a catastrophic failure before the water reached the top. Almost a year later, the Corps admitted that the floodwall suffered from multiple fatal design flaws and failed prematurely.

If you think you know why New Orleans flooded, think again.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As I watch the documentary, Surviving Katrina on the Discovery Channel, I’m impressed that this program shows the flooded buses, that is, the school busses that Mayor Ray Nagin failed to use to evacuate the 100,000 citizens of his city who did not have cars. This is the first time I have seen a non-conservative news/information outlet show a picture of those vehicles, an image of the failure of the New Orlean city government to deal with the hurricane.

In their eagerness to use the Katrina disaster as fodder for their increasingly negative reporting of the Administration, all too many in the MSM neglected numerous facts, like the flooded busses which demonstrate the failure of state and local governments to respond to Katrina. So far, this documentary seems to be the exception to so much I’ve seen in the MSM on Katrina. It makes clear that government officials on all levels blundered in responding to the disaster.

Perhaps, that’s because of the size of the disaster. It was one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history. (I even heard one pundit call it the largest natural disaster in our history.) And given the size of the storm and its impact on one of America’s largest cities, it’s remarkable how well relief officials, at all levels, did. Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) has referenced (e.g., here) a Popular Mechanics report which found that “response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest–and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.“

Contrast the destruction Katrina wrought and that of the Hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in September 1900. A city which then at had 38,000 residents lost between 6,000 and 8,000 people. If New Orleans had lost the same percentage of its citizens, somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 people would have died in that city alone.

That said, there were problems with the evacuation and relief of the city. All too many are all too eager to point the blame at President Bush. During the coverage of the storm, people kept saying that if President Clinton’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director, James Lee Witt had been in charge, he would have done a better job of providing relief to the city. Yet, they fail to point out that during his tenure, Mr. Witt never had to confront a natural disaster of the size of Katrina.

And while there is little doubt that Mr. Witt did a fine job, in most cases, his job was made easier by competent local officials. It’s not FEMA’s job to manage disaster relief, but to assist state and local governments who, rather than the federal government, have the “primary responsibilty” to respond to such catastrophes.

(more…)

Call me heartless (many of you do anyway), but I can’t quite decide which female I’m more tired of hearing about right now — Jon Benet or Katrina.

In the GayPatriot spirit of snarkiness, I’d like you all to nominate your favorite media-driven Katrina myth that the American public now believes is absolute fact.

My favorite:  That the Federal Government blew up the levees because “George Bush hates black people.”  (Spike Lee continues to promote this lie….)

FACT:  More white people died in Katrina than any other ethnic group.

My other favorite Katrina story line is that while Ray Nagin couldn’t get these buses started to help his people leave the city before the storm hit, he had no problem finding buses to bring people back to New Orleans for his primary election win.

So nominate away for your favorite hysteria-driven myth (*cough* LIE *cough*) from the drive-by media. 

**MORNING UPDATE** – Mayor “Motormouth” Nagin is at it again, taking a shot at Ground Zero in New York City. 

When a “60 Minutes” correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars on the streets, Nagin shot back, “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair,” according to CBS.

Does this man have no shame?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)