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Government Fails
I find it refreshing that so many media figures are demanding accountability from government officials and at least recognizing the government failure, here. The problem is, inevitably, they'll do as E.J. Dionne has done, and determine that the solution is a bigger, more comprehensive, richer version of the same government that failed, and continues to fail on a massive scale with its most basic responsibility.

In one of his daily letters to the editor, New Orleans native Don Boudreaux replies:

Dear Editor:

E.J. Dionne says that rescue and rebuilding efforts, of the kind needed in New Orleans, require government ("When Government is 'Good'," Sept. 2). He even suggests that government is our friend of last resort. Hmm. Government has utterly failed. It failed to prepare, despite years of warning that a hurricane could devastate my hometown. And it is failing now - tragically - at its most fundamental responsibility: maintaining law.

Some friend.

Why should we trust this inevitably centralized and politicized institution?...

...But even conceding that point, in this case, the federal government made it impossible for anyone else to do the job. It then failed in what it set out to do. In that sense, the government most certainly has blood on its hands. And I think it's most certainly appropriate to question the priorities of an adminstration that was made aware of this threat and ignored it and, now pretends it never knew the levees were vulnerable and, all the while, has spent billlions of dollars rebuilding a country we needlessly tore down.

Judging from email, many of you disagree with me. Sorry. But this was foreseeable. All of it. Government has failed, at all levels. And unlike what happened after September 11, this time there needs to be some accountability....