No one would argue against self-sufficiency as a human goal or contradict established protocol for crisis management, though such pre-arrangements are subject to human error and poor judgment that may require, as here, spontaneous intervention. The welfare argument is also defensible to a point. I'm not one to spend much time on the weeping couch. If not for cold season, a box of tissues would last me a decade.
But. It is beyond unseemly to justify consequences befalling the unfortunate on the basis that they should have known better or done more. The implication wears a sneer and ignores the larger issue, the one that transcends blame and begs redress: What about national security?
We can hash out issues of poverty, race and class and state's rights and federalism and all those other luxuries of our overfilled bellies as the weeks go by. Of more immediate concern is how we protect ourselves against terrorists when the federal government has proved itself unreliable at our first dress rehearsal.
In the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Bush defined his administration in terms of national security, building the colossal Department of Homeland Security and creating a Cabinet position for its director. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that coordinates federal response to catastrophes, including hurricanes, was absorbed by the new department, while Bush cronies replaced the organization's most experienced staffers.
One of those was recently resigned Michael D. Brown, an attorney and former horse-show administrator whose official title in retrospect sends shivers: Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response. When FEMA was slow to respond to Katrina — and Brown seemed to be a day behind headlines familiar to anyone with a TV — Americans were justified in wondering who was watching the mother ship.
And in asking what, heaven forbid, might have happened had the levees been targeted by terrorists instead of Mother Nature? It was fair to conclude that if Brown was head of FEMA, and FEMA was part of Homeland Security, then homeland security might be in trouble. That's why many Americans are outraged and point to Bush in the blame game.
Whatever sense of security Americans may have felt before Katrina hit has been washed away with the fetid waters that swamped over New Orleans. It will take more than a linguistic trick to get it back.