Katrina and Gustav
A leading Democrat observed: “Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven…To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention.” Actually, Gustav hasn’t worked out badly for the GOP at all, at least so far. Katrina was another story, and the media narrative has become a legend in part at odds with the facts:
It is worth remembering that many of the problems of Katrina were not the fault of the federal government. People had ample time and warning to Get Out! before the hurricane struck. President Bush called Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco well before the storm hit and asked her to force a mandatory evacuation of low lying areas, but Blanco dallied. Indeed, days after the storm hit she still tried to keep the feds away, and inexplicably refused to authorize aid from others for New Orleans.
We continue to wonder if Governor Blanco’s disastrous response to Katrina was possibly part of a Democratic strategy to make the Bush administration look bad (“All the National Guardsman are in Iraq so they can’t help,” etc.) — a plan that spun wildly out of control because the storm turned out to be so bad. How else to explain that, days after the hurricane struck, Mayor Nagin was more than willing to give control of New Orleans to the federal government, but Governor Blanco said she still “needed 24 hours to make a decision.” Maybe complete incompetence would also be an adequate explanation.
As for Gustav, the divine intervention eliminated both Messrs. Bush and Cheney from speaking roles at the convention, producing a “huge sigh of relief by most party strategists.” The media were deprived of the split screen pictures they wanted to show — happy revelers and the drenched, homeless poor. Louisiana’s GOP Governor Bobby Jindal got to show that he is on the ball and up to the task. FEMA and the Bush administration seem to be “100% better prepared” this time around. And Senator McCain got to look somber and adult and overact for the media: “We are facing a great national challenge’.” All in all, not a bad outcome so far.