Attention Span
I will post something non-New Orleans-related today. It seems time finally for that. But to catch up after an abbreviated (sorry) holiday edition of Media Monday, here's some wishful thinking in an editorial in the Independent, presuming that Americans will actually take the time to look at the big picture of governance:

There is a sense that the struggle for the soul of America is gathering pace. Hurricane Katrina has posed some fundamental ideological questions. Most obvious is the proper balance between state and federal government. Americans are asking why federal help did not arrive earlier....Americans appear to want a leadership that can make federal government work again. But can the Republican Party with its narrow emphasis on "small government" fulfil that role?

I'm not sure that we have the collective attention span to think so globally. If there is a sea-change of political support, it will be more because people notice that things have really sucked under Republicans and we should try something different. I doubt that we are capable of a national recognition of something like federal-state balance being off kilter.

More likely, we will need to affect incremental change. Senator Clinton is on the right general track, proposing legislation to unmoor FEMA from the Homeland Security Department. Frankly, considering she is already the presumed Democratic nominee in '08, it was nice to finally hear from her in all this. (As far as that goes, it was nice to finally hear from Howard Dean as well, if only in a press release or 2.)

Still, it feels like the major failure was not one of beauracratic organization, but good old fashioned incompetent management and bad hiring. The important response is not to rearrange the boxes, though that probably is a good idea (some disagree). The proper response is to fire all the bastards in charge. Sadly, we know that isn't going to happen. You have to be critical of the President to get fired.