Dean's World

Joe Gandelman has an extended piece going into all the reactions to Katrina. I read most of it and just stopped.

I'm going to go back to what I said before: the recriminations about the Federal response are more about a) politics, and b) the 24 hour news cycle. When this is all over, mostly we'll look back and see that the response was fast and timely and effective, and that if there's blame there's plenty to go around for everybody, but for the most part there'll be the simple truth: a disaster we knew for decades could happen came to pass, and efforts to blame one party, or to jump all over first responders for not responding fast enough to the biggest American disaster in a century just look dumb. It's not holding people accountable, it's just backseat driver nonsense.

I'm not even talking about the administration either, I'm talking about the New Orleans mayor and city council, the governor, the congress, and all the rest. The finger-pointing is probably going to keep going on for a while, but mostly it'll peter about because the truth is this was a disaster waiting to happen that absolutely everybody in power has a share in--and that goes back to politicians as far back as the 1970s. And let's not even get started on the New Orleans PD and other appointed officials.

Even those horrible schoolbus photos don't make me mad anymore. All I'll say is that anybody who refuses to blame all who had a hand in this--including, ultimately, the voters--is a hypocrite.

But I go back to it: in a month, most will be looking at how impressively fast the first responders were and how much good was done in so short a time period. All those claiming it was too slow will look just a little crazy--driven crazy by the 24 hour news cycle.

That's about all I have to say I think.

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Martin L. Shoemaker (www):

I once again endorse Scott Kirwin's rational response:

You know, I really don't know. I'm just going to stop trying to figure this all out and think of more ways to help.

There's time for analysis and recriminations and whatnot later. Right now, just help the victims.

9.4.2005 3:48am

Bryan Costin (mail) (www):

I agree with your sentiment. Unfortunately the same backseat crybabies will still be running CNN and the other networks long after Katrina becomes history. They'll keep running the same archival clips, bereft of proper context, and the same reporters and anchors who are disgracing themselves right now will be the ones who will be there to explain it all to us.

Thank God they no longer have a monopoly on the news. But the sensationalistic and rabid reporting of the last few days has left us all a stock of misinformation and hateful rhetoric that people of good conscience will be fighting to correct (over and over) for a long, long time. One look at the venom on DU and Kos and I see flocks of new "plastic turkey" stories being born before my eyes.

9.4.2005 4:02am

JoanH (www):

I agree with you, but unfortunately I think you're being too optimistic. Why should hindsight prove any more accurate regarding Katrina that it has about anything else? There are still people who believe that getting the US out of Vietnam was a good thing, in spite of the chaos that the pullout left in its wake. These same people will refuse to accept reality once again when reviewing what happened with respect to the Katrina relief efforts.

For starters, take a look at the WaPo article here, with the prominent headline "Feds Shift Blame." But if you actually read the article, you'll see that the Feds have been trying to assume authority for days now, but LA officials won't let them. There's even a bizarro-world quote from an unnamed LA official: "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals[.]" Seems to me that if the Feds took authority, then they would be the ones responsible for any blame, and any credit. The headline is further belied by the article's own sources: state and local officials. It seems to me that it's not the Feds who are shifting the blame, but if all you read are the headlines, what are you going to come away with?

As I said, I agree with you that the response has been phenomenal. It would be great if everyone else eventually comes to see that, too -- but I'm not holding out too much hope.

9.4.2005 4:32am

Dave Schuler (mail) (www):

Yep. I wrote pretty much the same thing on Friday. I knew there was a reason I liked you, Dean.

9.4.2005 5:32pm

Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

I basically agree with Scott Kirwin. All we can do now is help out the survivors as best we can rather than wasting wind on this tragic wind. But Robert Tracinski, has some thoughts on the vicious man-made disaster that has been added to the natural disaster. One of the best things I've read so far about this whole mess (next to Eric Scheie's posts on it in Classical Values). Via Diana Mertz Hsieh (NoodleFood). Jason Kuznicki here refutes both socialists and anarchists and gives a case for limited government and suggestions on how capitalists can help out with such disasters in the future.

9.4.2005 6:07pm