Ultimately, David Brooks hit the nail on the head in a way that no other pundit seems to have. The Katrina Hurricane revealed the fact that there is no plan to save the poorest, the disabled, the incarcerated, the elderly. This was no “women and children first” exercise. It was “leave if you can, good luck”. So the people who could leave left before the storm, or immediately after the storm. And all of America watched with shame and embarrassment as the poor people and their children begged camera crews for help for days before anything was done. We grew flush with rage when it was our camera crews that were able to go where no National Guardsmen could find their way.
To the inevitable Bush apologists, I would offer this: this is the shame of a bad leader: Americans suffered because they were not rescued by the world’s last Superpower in their own backyard. To those who would backhandedly say, “Bush didn’t start Katrina” I say Bush was campaigning while people were becoming trapped. He could have ordered Air National Guard Helicopters and tankers off the ground but he was in his handler’s cocoon of no pain, and no bad or unfiltered news. I would remind you that Roosevelt didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor but he was publicly reassuring Americans within one day of the attack.
No one could have predicted 9/11, I have heard the meme spouted on the cable “news” stations as a defense of Bush. But what could be a better preparatory ground for a storm like Katrina that a storm like 9/11? Hell, everyone voted for the President because of his abilities to lead during a disaster. After two elections, I have yet to see even one example of this vaunted leadership.
The fact is, this is the result of a culture of unregulated capitalism. Don’t expect the government to save you because private industry will. Well, apparently there was little profit to be made from emptying out an old folks home and saving people with nothing. There is no economic incentive to rescue the poor. So why not empower and FUND government to be able to do those jobs? Because this is the America where money trumps everything: children, the poor, the immigrants, the uneducated, the infirm. In Texas, Rick Perry is already telling the flood victims that Texas is out of room. Can you imagine that? Texas is out of room? Is it any wonder he cut 145,000 Texas children off of a public health insurance program? Is it any wonder that one sixth of the US population is without health insurance? Or that one million of them are Texas children?
Katrina blew the covers off of our mirrors and we got to see the country we have become. Three clicks on a remote control will do the trick. The Military Channel extols our lofty power and ability to get to targets rapidly. Kudlow and Kramer bleat on about our undaunted economy. But when a bought and sold mainstream news outlet like CNN heads to find drama and accidentally reverts to journalism and shows the depth of the suffering and the shameless ways that we simply left our own citizens to fend for themselves, then there was no place to hide.
That crying old lady in her wheelchair on the roof of her house? No that’s not Bush’s fault. That’s the Governor’s fault say the Bushies. The Left points out that the Governor as a matter of public record begged for help earlier. But the point here is really that the old lady on the roof is not much different in many ways from the Prisoner in the Hood at Abu Gharaib. It is a symbol to the world of what we have become.
Consider that a levee reconstruction scene on CNN was turned out to be staged just because Bush’s entourage showed up. It was reported by Dutch and German newscaster and by the Governor of Louisiana herself. Noper, CNN didn’t admit that they had been had or that they had been in league with them. That tells me that the best way to insure that the Bush Administration will respond to help rescue me is to call for news cameras first.
Make sure the cameras stay until the rescue is over.