Three Years Late
Make no mistake. There is no honor in being ready for the second hurricane.
Every pre-positioned FEMA supply caravan is one that should have been there three years ago before Katrina. Every bus full of evacuees is a bus that should have left New Orleans three years ago before Katrina. Every ounce of tough talk from a failed president is a speech that should have been given three years ago before Katrina.
Every shored-up levee this time is a levee that never should have broken in the first place.
The failures of Katrina were just another example of George Bush’s failed Republican philosophy. Krugman nails it today:
FEMA’s degradation, from one of the government’s most admired agencies to a laughingstock, wasn’t an isolated event; it was the result of the G.O.P.’s underlying philosophy. Simply put, when the government is run by a political party committed to the belief that government is always the problem, never the solution, that belief tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Key priorities are neglected; key functions are privatized; and key people, the competent public servants who make government work, either leave or are driven out.
New Orleans does not deserve to further suffer the wrath of George Bush’s failures. Luckily the storm has weakened considerably in the last 24 hours, so most are cautiously optimistic that the levees will hold and a great American city will live to fight another day.
But we are not out of the woods yet. Whatever it is you do to appeal to the fates, do it now to try to sway those levees to withstanding the storm surge.
Whatever you do, don’t watch the news today with pride. Watch the news today with profound sadness that we’re three years late.
