Rick over at Rightwing Nuthouse has a great post summarizing the latest greate [...]

There is not one single level of government from the Parish administrators to City and State officials to the Federal government (including Congresses past and present) that did not make mistakes, did not miscalculate, did not mis-communicate, and did not fail to do things that should have been done to protect the populace both before and during the hurricane. That is a fact. It is undeniable. No one deserves a “pass” on this one. As a society we absolutely must evaluate all those points of response and responsibility in a clear-headed way, learn from the mistakes and failures, replace officials where warranted, redraw disaster plans, and try to do a much, much better job next time. (All the while knowing that circumstances will be different “next time” and things WILL still go wrong next time.)

But, in all fairness, every one of those governmental entities mentioned above also planned things, and did things, and ordered things, and appropriated things and arranged things that certainly saved lives and helped prevent an even worse catastrophe from materializing. Add to that the work of the private disaster response organizations. Maybe what they all did in concert was a large part of the difference between 10,000 and 1000 deaths? Can we accept or even entertain that possibility? Maybe the whole disaster reponse to Katrina was actually quite a bit better than we have been able to admit. Wouldn’t it be interesting totry to at least test that out as a frame for the story?

Graham: “Of course, Sean, this happens in a country when we have taken God out of our schools and God out of our society. We don’t have a moral standard and we need to put God back into our schools.” He COULD have said “This happens in a cultural diverse society where poverty drives some to greed and desparation.” But no. He has to use it as a platform for proselytizing his own religious agenda.

Lets bring back the days of the Hindenburg. “Oh, the humanity!”

Graham answered, “Of course, Sean, this happens in a country when we have taken God out of our schools and God out of our society. We don’t have a moral standard and we need to put God back into our schools.”

The Center for Media and Public Affairs’ Matthew Felling said the “gusts of a hurricane both cloud and obscure vital truths.” So, too, did these storm conditions hinder and slow ANY response from ANYWHERE.

But, the above acted to cloud and obscure the truth of what really happened and, at the time, that was all just swell for the Bush-bashing bunch.