I'm not bashing Bush, either. But you are 100% right. Even with some advance warning, the rescue efforts appear inept and uninspiring. Local and state authorities have been thoroughly unimpressive since the weekend. The President appears to have been out to lunch. 4 years of Homeland Security don't look well invested.
On 9-11 there was a 100% failure at the Federal level, as Mark Steyn says. If the bad guys had the ability to have 100 planes in the air and attack between 8:45am and 9:15am, the impression I get is that you would have seen the descent of New Orleans play out all over the nation (though probably not the entire nation). After 4 years of preparedness, we clearly don't have much to show for it.
America is weak and unprepared. If I noticed, you can bet the bad guys noticed. It's very clear to me that we need to make severe adjustments: the USA can't handle a severe bodyblow. It just can't.
It's a time for ingenuity and solutions. Just because leftmedia blacks out the extent of the rescue efforts underway does not mean nothing is being done. At this time, none of us can comprehend the extent of the disaster. Casualties are unavoidable. Don't you understand the power of nature by now? We are mere humans. And we need to be helping -- not hurting -- the situation. Have a heart, Hitman!
STOP PICKING ON THE PRESIDENT!!!
I do not disagree but I wonder what the answer is? A first step, as in most things, is to see it like it is and tell it like it is. You have done that but I wonder what is next?
I lived through the '50s and early '60s in my formative years under the shadow of worldwide nuclear war, and things like civil defense and fallout shelters were the things talked about then. But then the naysayers came along with the (politically motivated) mantra that "you can't survive, much less win, a nuclear war, and if you try all you are is a warmonger who makes such a disaster more likely". IOW, sit back and be held hostage, and if the worst happens, take it like a man. So CD, as a realistic buffer against nuclear catastrophe, became non-functional.
With natural disasters, it also seems like the current system makes it a non-win situation, ripe for second-guessing and demagoguery by opportunistic pols. There's nothing new or surprising in that, but in real terms, where can we go from here?
Well, what do you think you're going to get for only $3.5 Trillion per year, millions of parasites on the payroll and millions of pages of promulgations on the books?
The problem is obviously lack of funding, not failure of Big Stupid Government.