Who's minding the store?

If you haven't been reading Michelle Malkin lately, she is tracking just about everything out there regarding Hurricane Katrina.

Even though I'm ready to send Al Sharpton to bed with an aspirin and a teddy bear, practically no one in the conservative blogosphere is giving the government -- federal, state OR local -- high marks for the handling of this catastrophe. In the reaction against the vile and ridiculous accusations of deliberate racism, we cannot simultaneously protect the government from some well-deserved ridicule and blame.

Exhibit #1: The failure of the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana to use public transport vehicles to evacuate the poor. Would that not have made perfect sense? Why in hell were the predators and the prey of the city all shuffled into the Superdome with the near-certainty that the city would be innundated? Just today Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco authorized the use of public school buses for evacuation. TODAY! The hurricane hit on MONDAY and we knew it was headed for New Orleans LAST SATURDAY.

Exhibit #2: Homeland Security Chief Mike Brown's assertion that Katrina would be a "standard hurricane." Yeah. He said that last Sunday. Anyone with a television KNEW that the National Weather Service was sending out apocalypic warnings. My guess is the guy doesn't know what the heck he's doing and it's CYA time. Boy, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that such a doofus is running Homeland Security.

Exhibit #3: We knew for years that a New Orleans flood was a disaster waiting to happen, just like we knew for years that terrorists had plans to hit a major American city. Again, anyone who watches The Discovery Channel knew that because of its geographical situation, New Orleans' could NOT sustain a direct hit by a major hurricane.

My fifth-quarter assessment is the New Orleans catastrophe was the sad result of a very long string of bad decisions and shuffled responsibility made over the years by bureaucrats and politicians at all levels.