Yes, Bunnie, we are a bunch of derelicts, aren't we? August was vacation, but we should be back on the job now.

So.

I just love how the media is all over the President and the feds about the lateness of the hurricane response. It was late, but last I checked the first respondents in any natural disaster, and the first planners of evacuation routes, are the local and city governments, backed up by their state. 25% of New Orleans is below the poverty level, thousands do not have the automobiles to leave, and depend on local public transportation for evacuation. And yet still, Mayor Nagin screams and yells on the radio (but was quick to get some good photo ops with the President yesterday too) about late federal response. Hey, Mr. Mayor. Why are all these buses just sitting here in a flooded parking lot? Whose plans were foul? Who was unprepared?

And then they begin attacking the President about not fully funding levee reinforcement, ignoring former ACE Director Mike Parker (brilliant on CNN last night, I thought) who calmly explained that levee funding has been negligent since the LBJ Administration. And even if Bush had funded the levee reinforcements way back in 2001-2002, the current ACE Director even said it wouldn't have made much difference, and that the repairs wouldn't have been completed by now anyway.

I see that a consortium of nations is releasing 60 million barrels of oil to help the US fuel crunch, and that is admirable. I think it is also good economic policy. If gas prices remain at an average of over $3 for the rest of the year, consumers will cut back radically on spending (can you imagine what Christmas at the malls will be like? Would you like to own retail stocks right now?), and the economy will flatline. And when the US economy flatlines, it takes others around the world with it. Keeping US gas prices low is good global economics.

Here's a laugher: first the media and many pols says FEMA's late response is due in part to bureaucratic snafus, paperwork, red tape, and poor coordination. Fine, I don't disagree a bit. Then Mary Landrieu turns around and suggests creating a Cabinet-level position to coordinate disaster relief. Then another talking head on CNN yesterday said because unemployment in the Gulf States would be such a problem, perhaps we need to create a National Recovery Administration, a la the New Deal. Wait, I thought bureaucracy was the problem...

Another good one: Katrina's devastation was due to global warming. Excuse me, when hurricanes were devastating the Gulf Coast around the same time that St. Thomas Aquinas was writing the Summa, was that due to global warming too? Even the Weather Channel this week discounted the role of global warming in this disaster, and they are hardly a branch of the Republican National Committee.

David Frum has some particularly good links on the politics of Katrina over at NRO.

That should cover me for a day. O-man? Style Editor? Doc Potomac?