Hurricane Katrina and other thoughts

Sorry I haven't posted in quite some time. Too intellectually lazy during those last weeks of summer, I suppose. Regardless, I'm back and ought to be posting more regularly than ever now that school's back in session. And now to the point.

Red America has gone red in the face over post-Katrina criticism of the Bush administration and the GOP in general. They charge liberals with exploiting a national tragedy to make political points, and distorting facts in the process. David Frum at National Review, Oliver North at Human Events, and Pat Buchanan, also at Human Events, provide a good sampling of the talking points.

War Criminal Oliver North provides the most ridiculous indictment of all: "...while hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast are mourning dead family and friends and trying to comprehend their losses in the flooded streets, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is blaming Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi, and the GOP for the devastation caused by the hurricane." In one sentence, Tehran Ollie summarizes the impotence of the Republican response to charges of hurricane exacerbation. He completely misses the point of Kyoto- and Iraq-related post-hurricane critisms: nobody is charging that Bush and the GOP literally and directly caused the hurricane. Rather, they make two legitimate charges that conservatives can't dodge. First, as David Corn points out, liberals charge that American conservatives' neglect of emissions-related climate change has worsened the impacts of land-falling hurricanes, which, research indicates, may be intensified by global warming. Second, and most obviously, liberals charge that the national guard was unable to respond to the disaster as rapidly as possible due to its deployment in Iraq. This is almost indisputable; as a result, regular active-duty Army troops have been deployed (technically illegally) to help in the relief efforts.

Perhaps worse, some conservatives question the very idea of Federal rebuilding in New Orleans. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is one of these conservatives.

In situations like these, the people who are crying "exploitation" or "opportunism" tend to those who are unable to formulate rational, convincing responses. Sure, if Kyoto had been ratified by the U.S., or if U.S. troops had never invaded Iraq, Hurricane Katrina probably would have still happened, and it would have still caused significant damage. But we should not avert our eyes to the ways conservative policy can worsen natural disasters, especially in the face of the most damaging act of God in the modern history.