america is great

. . . . . but the government ain't .

this whole katrina thing does seem to prove that America is great when you measure this country by the people who make it up. Everyone (well, almost everyone - i'll say more later) has pitched in and done something, or shown the willingness to do so. I say almost everyone, because apparently those in washington, starting with the big loser W, haven't done shit.

but out whole country: black and white; north and south; red state and blue state; Democrat and Republican; poor and not so poor; christian, jew, muslim. all have turned out with a willingness to do something and fix the situation in new orleans.

bob hebert, in the NYTimes today gets it right.
"After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. (The chorus of criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this administration.)"

he continues: "Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration."

he concludes: "Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble."

and i conclude with a combination of things. first is bush's butchering of the famous phrase "fool me once". and second would be some pictures, but i can't get those right now. so here goes:

Fool me once [pictures of looters in baghdad] shame on you. Fool me twice [pictures of looters in NOLA], shame on me.

Looting in both of these cases is not about people trying to act malicious. It is about a failure of certain people to anticipate people's needs. Basic needs like food, water, electricity and medicine. And it is about people then attempting to meet those needs on their own. And in the absence of government and law and order, you get looting. So while these things could have been anticipated and alleviated or avoided, bush led us straight into the disasters that we now have to clean up and fix as best we can for the next generations.