The $64K question

Did anyone catch Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith reporting from N.O. last night during Hannity & Colmes?

Geraldo's melodrama nothwithstanding, I was stunned, completely stunned at what the trapped New Orleanians are having to endure. Shepard Smith kept waving toward I-10, saying that there was a way -- at least on foot -- out of the city, but a checkpoint had been established and anyone who tried to leave was being turned away.

What in the crap is going on?

Why not leave on foot? Are they trying to control exit of the stranded? Are they afraid that outlying towns, where there still are utilities and resources, might be victimized by the desperate?

From the chaos we've seen at the Superdome, that might be a reasonable fear. On the other hand, as long as people are literally starving and cooking to death on interstate overpasses, seems a pretty brutal thing to keep them from leaving.

I dunno. Only conclusion I can come to is that the powers that be were caught flat-footed, and there has been no clear and decisive leadership from the get-go.

On the other hand, when was the last time in modern American history that an entire major city was put out of commission? Answer: Never. We just haven't seen anything like this before.

God help us.