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I agree with much of what you have said.

There is always room for improvement, at all levels of government, in planning and response. Hindsight is 20-20. If we learn from this, then that's a silver lining to a very dark and ugly cloud.

You are right that NOTHING would have stopped those many, many buildings from being blown away. And many people could have left, but didn't.

What I find interesting is that we didn't hear of widespread government failure or massive lawlessness in Mississippi, which was the hardest hit. OK, New Orleans is a large city, and the flooding presented its own dangers. But grossly ineffective state and local governments and a culture of violence and criminality seem to have made the most difference.

Also, there ARE limits to what the federal government can legally do. Maybe we need to look at that. The Bush administration will bear some of the blame, like it or not, for appearing to defer too much to a governor who obviously is not qualified for even the lowest elective office. And the President's opponents and the media will pile on (and have done so already) as much as possilbe, overplaying their hand and having it boomerang on them as usual.

I think everybody got a bit "fooled" when New Orleans was spared the brunt of the storm on Monday. Remember all the "New Orleans dodged the bullet" headlines from Monday afternoon until about a day later, after the levee broke? It was about another 24 hours before the Superdome lawlessness and looting stories started to circulate.

I say investigate and let the chips fall where they may. No one should be afraid of a full, fair and impartial inquiry - if in fact such a thing is possible in today's atmosphere. I try to "test" my feelings on a matter by saying what if the shoe was on the other foot - what if a Democrat president and a Republican governor and mayor were in charge. Would I feel differently? Would the media?

This is a disaster of almost Biblical proportions. It's a shame anyone has to expend an ounce of energy on finger pointing when there are still untold corpses strewn about the countryside and thousands upon thousands whose lives have been shattered. But I guess we're on notice as to what we're facing. If Bush has somehow "federalized" the State of Louisiana, the law be damned, the left would be howling about thew "illegal" and "unilateral" action, comparing it to their view of Iraq and calling Bush a dictator. They would add in that he was being a hypocrite about "states' rights" into the mix. And then they would keep blaming him because unless he could have stopped the storm from hitting the US MANY PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE NO MATTER WHAT, sad to say.

Again, if there's incompetence on the federal level, let's weed it out. I just want the whole picture to come to light. And a sizeable portion of the media, if not the public, will never give Bush credit for anything. I like it best when he just does what he thinks is right and ignores the baseless criticism.