Live from the Nuke Free Zone

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us “Sin City,” and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice, writing in the New York Times, in an article entitled Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? In it, she tells us some of the reasons why NOLA was such a special place, and how we’re missing that all in the coverage. (Thanks to Livejournal user cobaltgreen for the pointer.)

The response has been dreadful, and the lies being spread in the name of spin control are awful. Why can’t we get competence in there and save some lives and make people’s lives better? Is that at all possible?

And now, from Mary Landrieu’s office (she’s the Senator that got reamed by Anderson Cooper a few days ago) has released a statement which includes the following (emphasis added):

I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims — far more efficiently than buses — FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast — black and white, rich and poor, young and old — deserve far better from their national government.

(Tip of the hat to Mark Kleiman via Kevin Drum, which is where I first saw this.)

When is the President going to realize that staged events just make him look like a coward? Oh, right, never.

And now Rehnquist has died. The chances of Bush getting away with this scot free go up by the day.