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September 12, 2005
Kinsley Making Sense?
Why is it that everytime the Democratic Party seems ready to eat itself alive, someone from the left comes along and well, makes some sense:
AS A GOOD AMERICAN, you no doubt have been worried sick for years about the levees around New Orleans. Or you've been worried at least since you read that official report in August 2001 — the one that ranked a biblical flood of the Big Easy as one of our top three potential national emergencies. No? You didn't read that report in 2001? You just read about it in the newspapers this last week?
Well, how about that prescient New Orleans Times-Picayune series in 2002 that laid out the whole likely catastrophe? Everybody read that one. Or at least it sure seems that way now. I was not aware that the Times-Picayune had such a large readership in places like Washington, D.C., and California. And surely you have been badgering public officials at every level of government to spend whatever it takes to reinforce those levees — and to raise your taxes if necessary to pay for it.
No? You never gave five seconds of thought to the risk of flooding in New Orleans until it became impossible to think about anything else? Me neither. Nor have I given much thought to the risk of a big earthquake along the West Coast — the only one of the top three catastrophes that hasn't happened yet — even though I live and work in the earthquake zone.
Of course, my job isn't to predict and prepare for disasters. My job is to recriminate when they occur. It's not easy. These days the recriminations business is overrun with amateurs, who are squatting on all the high ground. The fetid aroma of hindsight is everywhere.
Mind you, I do recognize that this is also an indictment of me, fellow LLPers, bloggers, reporters, Oprah, and Europe. But what you really need to understand that (at least for me), my reaction to Katrina (llike most sane people), went like this:
1. Not another Florida hurricane!
2. Wow, it was only a category one, Rush Limbaugh is safe, all is well (that second part is a JOKE)
3. Wait, its a category 5? And it's heading straight to Louisianna? I hope they get out!
4. Who is this fool? How did the citizens of New Orleans elect this man?
5. Oh, here's Robert Kennedy blaming Bush for the weather. But he's not really representative of the Democratic Party. He is a single issue advocate.
6. Whew, New Orleans is okay. Little wet, but the French Quarter is okay.
7. Holy cow! There is water everywhere! This is horrible!
8. Mayor loses control, Governor and Mayor bash Bush.
9. Democratic party makes this the rallying cry, "its ALL Bush's fault." Anyone, including the president, that makes any criticism of local response (i.e. criticizes democrats) will be punched in the face.
10. Bush, along with judge John Roberts, hates black people.
Now, I believe was critical mass for conservatives--especially bloggers. We just didn't believe it would play out like this, but deep down, we knew it would. But like everyone else, we saw people suffering and got angry. We see flooded busses, an incompetent mayor, an incompetent governor, an incompetent FEMA director and Bush with his deer in the headlights look. Bush would handle it, but if he was even at the Superdome, the levee would have still broken and all these lives would have been destroyed.
But what is key to this whole thing is the phrase, "shifting blame." SHIFTING blame. Bush is "SHIFTING blame." So who started pointing fingers first?
Likewise, a senator may not be the best judge of the need for a vast federal construction project in her state. Landrieu's I-told-you-so's would be more impressive if the press release archive on her website didn't contain equally urgent calls to spend billions of dollars to build boats the Navy hasn't asked for in Louisiana shipyards, self-congratulations for having planted a billion dollars of "coastal impact assistance" for Louisiana in the energy bill (this is before the flood), and so on. Did she want flood control or did she want $10 million to have " America's largest river swamp" declared a "National Heritage Area"?
Obviously — obviously in hindsight, that is — we should have spent the money to strengthen the New Orleans levees. President Clinton should have done it. Presidents Bush the Elder and Reagan should have done it. As Tim Noah notes in Slate, warnings about the perilous New Orleans levees go back at least to Fanny Trollope in 1832. In fact, the one president who is pretty much in the clear on this is our current Bush — not because he did anything about the levees but because even if he had started something, it probably wouldn't have been finished yet.
Posted by Aaron at September 12, 2005 10:40 AM
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Comments
What a great article. Thanks for highlighting it@
Posted by: Pam M. at September 12, 2005 11:06 AM