As Atrios has noted: “Four years of hearing that ‘9/11 changed everything’ as a justification for literally everything, we know now these incompetent fuckers couldn’t run a lemonade stand let alone defend the country or deal with a disaster.”

This begs a question: Would our government have deployed itself differently this week if terrorists had blown up the levees in New Orleans last Monday?

Staging such an attack would certainly have been possible. It was common knowledge that the levees were vulnerable — despite Mr. Bush’s statement otherwise — and the logistics of exploding Oklahoma City style truck bombs next to the berms and canals would seem to be easier than highjacking jetliners and flying them into buildings.

If Osama had blown up the levees, first off, Bush’s vacation would have ended abruptly on Monday, and he would have flown into the disaster scene right away to take charge. (None of the flitting around the country like a scaredy-pants school boy like he did on 9/11.) In Bushspeak, of course, “taking charge” means engaging in photo-ops and reciting Rovian speeches filled with bellicose resolve and determination.

Even before Mr. Bush was done in New Orleans on Monday, every department of the federal government would have been mobilized and resources would have poured in.

And then Bush would have announced an invasion of either Iran or Syria — or both.

Why the difference? Why was the government’s response so inadequate and sluggish? The answer is politics, of course.

[…]

Seeing Anderson Cooper lose it with Sen. Mary Landrieu yesterday helped crystallize some things for me. Cooper, who was obviously distraught and even close to tears, was in full blame mode, focusing all his emotion at Landrieu.

Did she try to cut him off, to out-shout him? Did she pull a peevish Bob Novak and storm off camera? No, she simply remained in gratitude, waited quietly for her turn to speak, affirmed his feelings, and reminded him that this is her home, her loss. That’s why she wants to fix it.

Amazingly, Landrieu is taking heat for this, and the worst part is she is taking it from our team. As Landrieu said, there is plenty of blame to go around and plenty of time later to assign it. Right now, we need to focus on solutions.

None of this is different from our own lives. We all know people who are perpetual victims, taking no personal responsibility, attributing every situation to what someone else made them do. And we know others, like Landrieu, who own their behavior and stay focused on doing the next right thing.

Trying to find somebody whose fault this can all be led some people yesterday to criticize Condoleezza Rice for shoe shopping in New York while people suffered in Louisiana and Mississippi. Well guess what, kids? I jogged while those people suffered. I surfed the internet while they suffered. I ate a nice lunch and quaffed a glass of wine while they were dying. Didn’t you? And don’t tell me there was more Rice could have done personally. There was way more I could have done personally.

Bush was wrong to divert our current and future resources to his idiotic war on terror. He was wrong to deny global warming and allow wetlands to be drained. But I have a lot of neighbors who believe in global warming and drive Lincoln Navigators anyway. I know a lot of people who bought a house in a development built in former wetlands. So exactly how are we morally superior?

My PR colleague, Buck, yesterday said this is the time for Democrats to show some leadership. I believe that’s what Mary Landrieu was doing. But like good Democrats, we stand in a circle, guns blasting. Enough already. Who we are doesn’t depend on who they are. We can do the right thing, whether Bush wants us to or not.

Full transcript of the interview HERE.

The owner of the Washington Times is the Rev. Sun Yung Moon and his Unification Church, a neofascist rightwing cult whose adherents were once known as Moonies. The following was edited by the paper’s editorial director, Tony Blankley, a conservative tool whose bona fides include working in the Reagan White House and serving as Newt Gingrich’s press secretary:

Troops are finally moving into New Orleans in realistic numbers, and it’s past time. What took the government so long? The thin veneer separating civilization and chaos, which we earlier worried might collapse in the absence of swift action, has collapsed.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has suspended his police department’s search-and-rescue operations to struggle with looters. Health-care centers remain under siege. The evacuation of thousands of refugees from the squalor and stink of the Superdome, inexcusably delayed, was delayed further when someone fired on a military helicopter … If this is not hell, it is close to it.

This horror will not subside with the flood. The government must treat the battlefield of Katrina as it would any other field of engagement: Protect and provide for the innocent and eliminate the enemy, and do it now, before we lose New Orleans. Send the 40,000 troops Gov. Kathleen Blanco has requested…

We expected to see, many hours ago, the president we saw standing atop the ruin of the World Trade Center, rallying a dazed country to action. We’re pleased he finally caught a ride home from his vacation, but he risks losing the one trait his critics have never dented: His ability to lead, and be seen leading.

As I walked my dogs through Coconut Grove this morning, I marveled at the difference in my neighborhood from a week ago when we awoke the morning after Hurricane Katrina whacked us — hard. Gone were the downed trees, the downed powerlines, the masses of tree limbs, leaves and chunks of debris that littered and blocked the streets. Gone was the eerie silence, replaced by humming air conditioners, traffic noise, birds singing.

Although some scars are permanent — the canopy is shot to hell and huge 80-year-old trees that shaded our streets were lost — the huge piles of storm debris are gone, including the 20-foot-long, five-foot-high one in front of my house. Looking around this morning, it’s almost possible to forget the stunned sense of bewilderment, emotional exhaustion and loss with which I greeted the dawn last Friday.

Then there’s New Orleans. While I went without electricity for five days, I cannot begin to fathom the suffering of the folks caught in the hell hole that was New Orleans. Though it took me three days to clear my yard and make repairs, I cannot begin to fathom the sense of loss of people in Gulfport and Biloxi whose houses and all their possessions are simply gone. Though I had no ice for my Gatorade or scotch, I was never without water or food.

Prior to Katrina’s making landfall in Florida, a massive support system had been mobilized. Florida Power & Light brought in 6,000 repair workers from neighboring states, including Lousisiana. By Saturday morning, ice and water were being delivered to Homestead, 30 miles south of Miami, near the tip end of the state. While over 800,000 people were without power Friday morning, by Monday all but 90,000 had their electricity restored.

Granted, Katrina was a borderline Category 2 when it rumbled through my neighborhood with winds just under 100 mph, and it was a Cat 4 when it hit the Gulf coast. But where was the preparation? Where was the emergency management? It’s not like we didn’t know where the hurricane was heading, when it would hit and what were the likely landfalls. So why did it take so long to get help to the people?

Maybe it’s a matter of practice. I mean, after all, Florida dealt with four hurricanes last year and one early this summer. And as much as I personally think Jeb Bush is one of the worst governors Florida has had (and that’s saying something), he does recognize the realities of emergency preparedness and response, and he communicates and he gets stuff done.

Chalk the misfortunes of the residents of the Gulf coast up to bad luck compounded by incompetence. I think the folks in New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama were just damned unlucky to get hit with a Category 4 hurricane on Ray Nagin’s, Kathleen Blanco’s and George Bush’s watch. Now, it seems, they’re just damned.

The Bush Administration is attempting to rewrite published reports over the past two years about its reallocation of funding from levee maintenance and repair in New Orleans to tax cuts and the war in Iraq:

“These (projects) were not funded at the full ability of the Corps of Engineers to execute the project,” said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. “But the important question is, ‘Would that have made a difference?’ And my assessment is, no, it would not.”

But Strock did acknowledge that more funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would allow the Corps to more quickly pump out the floodwaters inundating New Orleans.

“Had we had the SELA project finished … we could more efficiently move the water out of the system because it’s a big drainage project,” Strock said.

But a former head of the Army Corps of Engineers – along with documentary evidence – indicate that the projects might have prevented the chaos we are seeing today:

Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.

The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation’s waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.

“Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in,” said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002.

“I’m not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now.”

And of course the Republicans play their broken record: “It was Bill Clinton’s fault (and, what the heck – Carter’s too!):”

“I fought every … administration when they tried to use the Corps of Engineers as a piggy bank to pay for other projects,” said former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, a Louisiana Republican who represented the New Orleans suburbs for more than 20 years. “I had major battles with the Clinton administration. Going back to Carter. They’ve all sought to draw down the Corps of Engineers and put it elsewhere,” he said.

Naturally, he skipped laying the blame on the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

Associated Press:

Ragtag armies of the desperate and hungry begged for help, corpses rotted along flooded sidewalks and bands of armed thugs thwarted fitful rescue efforts as Americans watched the Big Easy dissolve before their eyes.

About 4:35 a.m. Friday, a series of massive explosions along the riverfront a few miles south of the French Quarter jolted residents awake. The cause of the blasts or the extent of any possible damage was not immediately known.

An initial explosion sent flames of red and orange shooting into the pre-dawn sky. A series of smaller blasts followed and then acrid, black smoke that could be seen even in the dark. The vibrations were felt all the way downtown.

The explosions appeared to originate close to the east bank of the Mississippi River, near a residential area and rail tracks. At least two police boats were at the scene.

“I am a conservative and while I don’t appraciate the left using my misery for cheap political gain, we need to call a spade a spade. Bush’s response as been as limp dick as Blank-o’s. Maybve more so when you consider the resources he has available. My adopted hometown is in ruins and nothing is being done. Period. Why do we have a f-ing government, if not for these situations? What do I pay taxes for? So I can live in an unconstitutional FEMA shelter and confiscate tax money, so I survive for four months while my city is rebuilt? Terrific. These situations are why conservatives believe in government. And our government at all levels including the man I voted for four times (Bush) has been an utter disaster. I am thinking of becoming an anarchist. Get me an AK 47 and a bus ticket back to New Orleans.”

— Actual Freeper Quote ^TM, from Pam’s House Blend

On CNN just now, resident curmudgeon Jack Cafferty just went off on the GOP Congress for waiting until tomorrow – five days after the hurricane struck – to cutting short their vacations and return to Washington to deal with the disaster in the Gulf.

He reminds us that back in March, the Congressional leadership — Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) — interrupted the spring vacations of members of the House and Senate in order to call the Congress into session to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case.

This present failure to act proves what we knew at the time. The GOP leaders weren’t acting out of urgency to save the life of a woman who’d been brain-dead for 15 years. They were showboating for pure political gain.

Some have suggested that we’re being too harsh with the Republicans over the handling of this disaster. Well, they’re the ones who lied, cheated and stole to gain control of the government. Now the reins are in their hands. Maybe governing wasn’t as easy as the Democrats made it look – or maybe they thought they could spin their way out of anything.

Lives are at stake. What is required here is competence and quick action. The corrupt conservatives who run our government are providing neither.

As if there weren’t enough heart break and horror in the Deep South areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of pets were left behind or have lost their humans in the storm. But unlike some human rescue services that have not left yet for the Gulf Coast, the Humane Society arrived on Tuesday, the day after the storm:

The HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) has been preparing for a massive response to Hurricane Katrina since word of its path was reported last week. But the aftermath effects of the storm, and flooding in particular, continue to frustrate rescue efforts trying to reach the areas with the most losses…

More than 30 experienced HSUS rescue staff and volunteers trained in animal rescue from 12 states are coordinating with state officials, federal agencies, and other rescue organizations to start evacuating animals out of the most-affected areas. They’ll also begin establishing pet-friendly shelters and delivering supplies, resources and medical assistance.

With the call from Louisiana’s Governor to fully evacuate New Orleans, HSUS prepped teams to move into Baton Rouge, as soon as access permits, to coordinate pet-friendly sheltering for evacuees with the Louisiana SPCA.

Read the rest of the story. Donate to the Humane Society.

Hat tip to my sister!