The Black Republican

I was formulating a comment in response to Rick's post, and it grew into a post of its own.

I'm sure some problems in Louisiana are occurring because the federal government isn't doing everything perfectly, and the president and his administration are responsible for any errors they make that are part of their area responsibility. Apparently, one problem is they haven't been bringing food and water into New Orleans, under the belief that it would encourage people to stay in the city. While logical, it fails to account for the fact that many of these people were too obstinate to leave up to now, so not providing food inside New Orleans isn't going to convince them to leave. Reasonably healthy people are apparently dying of thirst and heat stroke because they'd rather wait for Big Brother to come save them than do it themselves.

Living in Florida, I know what I need to do to protect myself from hurricanes. And I know what the local authorities are supposed to do for me. And I know what the state is supposed to do to support them. 99% of the time, the federal government is there to hand out money after the fact, nothing more. From all appearances, this is one of that 1% of the time, but the fact is I don't see state and local officials in Louisiana and the people of New Orleans doing all they are responsible for.

I saw a report on Fox News on Friday, where one of the military analysts sent a team of security experts from his firm into NOLA to bring out a woman who talked to Bill O'Reilly on the phone. The woman had already been picked up by the Coast Guard, but the team found about 60 people in the neighborhood who greeted their arrival. According to the analyst, when his team offered the people food and water, they said they were doing just fine living off their hurricane supplies. The security guys airlifted out an injured boy and his family, but everyone else stayed behind.

Meanwhile, three different groups of people were shown on Dateline NBC on Friday night simply walking out of the city. While some were clearly distraught and injured, none seemed to complain that they were forced to save their own lives. And curiously, rather than praise these people for their perseverance and initiative, Dateline said they, 'took a risk that amazingly paid off.' Yah, I can imagine the risk involved by walking out of a sewer.

On the other hand, I saw another press report (I can't find a link) where a woman at the Convention Center in New Orleans said something like, 'I just want someone to feel our pain.' I find it incomprehensible that someone the media is telling us is dying of thirst would be quoted as saying, essentially, that she'd rather see Bill Clinton's quivering bottom lip than get a bottle of water. Is this supposed to prove to us how sick and delirious these people are?

At one time, being poor didn't mean anything more than that you didn't have money. You still had the potential for dignity, and probably had more wisdom than the well-off, because you understood what was really important in life. But if the MSM wants us to believe all these people we're seeing on TV are "the poor", then they are also the worst of the irresponsible, the ignorant, and the stupid. They are overwhelming the truly needy and incapacitated: the old, the infirmed, and those who were already addled and destitute when the storm hit. All of them deserve our compassion, but only some of them deserve our sympathy. If everyone who could walk their way out of the city would stop waiting for George Bush himself to come out in his waders to give them a hug and a bottle of water, we'd have a lot less melodrama on wall-to-wall news networks and a whole lot more saving lives.

UPDATE: Juliette Ochieng has taken a similar tack, and is being villified for it. The comments are quite interesting, especially the gentleman who compares black New Orleanians to Jewish concentration-camp victims. Also, be sure to read the DoD news briefing that reader "cardeblu" links to.

Q: Is it fair to say, using the convention center as an example, that one reason it took until Friday to get aid in is the National Guard needed time to build up a response team with military police to ensure law and order because the New Orleans Police Department had degraded so much?

GEN. BLUM: That is not only fair, it is accurate. You've concisely stated exactly what was needed, and I told you why. We took the time to build the right force. The outcome was superb. No lives hurt, nobody injured. It was done almost invisibly.

Oh, and by the way, Dean has more class than me. I admit it, but unlike him I haven't calmed down yet. If I didn't want to be called names (especially ones I deserve) I wouldn't have set up this blog in the first place.