"Ultra-catastrophe?"

Kyra Phillips of CNN just said "disaster to ultra-catastrophe." ?!? Joe Lieberman also just admitted that Homeland Security failed. People are holding up photos of their missing children on television. And the Bushes are calling up images of welfare queens lounging at the Astrodome. I just have to get this out-the President of the United States let people die. No arguments like the Iraq war; the bloated bodies floating in the streets didn't sign up to be poor. No more whining about what Blanco and Nagin should have done-they asked for help before the hurricane. I'm sure Tierney would be crying like a little bitch for help from the Feds if his pretty pretty New York abode was destroyed by natural disaster or, I don't know, terrorism. Be skeptical of government if you want to, but it exists to protect its citizens in exactly these situations, and it FAILED. I hope they all pay, and pay as dearly as I can wish without bringing the Secret Service down on myself.

A close friend of mine will be driving from Canyon, TX to Houston over the next several weekends to volunteer with the Red Cross, and he's opened his home to friends and former colleagues left with nothing. This is a man who can't afford a telephone right now, who's been charging his groceries. And he wants to do more. That's what we need, not live footage of pumping water from New Orleans. We need investigations into who was in charge when trucks with food and water were turned away by federal officials when local officials were begging for help. We need some revolution.

If you haven't watched the video of Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press, avoid it. Those five minutes lay bare everything that is wrong with this country.

And, for the conspiracy theorists:
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and his constituents have had many good things to say about the Federal government's response to the hurricane. He is a Republican.

New Orleans is a heavily Democratic city with a Democratic Mayor, and Louisiana has a Democratic Senator and Governor, and, well, you've seen what's been going on there. It seems that it's a lot more dangerous to be a "D" in the South than I thought.