Questions On The Crisis In The Crescent City

A few questions, if I may, for those interested in the whys and wherefores of the current crisis in Louisiana:

Who was directly responsible for command and control of National Guard troops? Who was directly responsible for addressing the needs of the city? Who was responsible for crying on national television and saying that the first responsibility of police should be to save lives and not to enforce laws?

I'll give you a hint: It wasn't the President. The President is the fixer, the guy who comes in when all other authorities have failed. And in Louisiana, despite the best efforts of the mayor of New Orleans, folks upstream and downstream from him in the State of Louisiana failed him.

And I do not hold the citizens of Louisiana faultless, because a few of them did cause lawlessless and criminality in New Orleans. So let us acknowledge that the State of Louisiana failed to a major degree. And let us acknowledge that the President should have stepped in a day or two earlier. Let us even blame the head of FEMA for all his happy talk.

But to point the finger of blame solely at the President and the White House would be unproductive. The damage has been done. What we must do is realize that the response has been in many ways execrable, and that we must do all we can to assist people now, and to modify the lines of authority so that they run efficiently in the future.

Otherwise, blatant partisanship is pointless, and to me, it is unworthy of a great nation.