As a FReeper said to me once when I needed it, "Lighten up, Francis." The discussion here is only partly funding for the arts -- the whole picture is reducing spending to help NOLA, and the context is Dubya's announcement that there would need to be spending cuts to do so.
Call it "using this disaster to propagate your agenda" if you want, but -- unlike Cindy Sheehan and Bush bashers -- it's within the context of a worthy mission stated by our President: to pay for NOLA relief by cutting taxes. This discussion stems from that, and if you ask me, it is an ideally appropriate platform for propatating an agenda to get rid of the Nat'l Endowment for the Arts. Even though "we're still counting our dead," as you say, this disaster is a perfect illustration of exactly the kind of thing that's needed. Personally, I don't find that "low" at all.
Sorry, man, it just doesn't pass the smell test. I think if we start seeing letters to the editor calling for funding cuts on any politically charged issue (arts, foreign aid) due to Katrina, it'll look awful for us.