Author: Andrew Sullivan

Americans have already donated a record $404 million to help the victims of Katrina. That’s the America I have come to know and love. As an immigrant, the one thing that has always struck me very forcefully about Americans is their willingness to volunteer and their readiness to lend a hand to others in need. Most Americans don’t realize how striking this is. I grew up in England and my view of America was often related to their helping people in need and their remarkable hospitality. I know the proportion of foreign aid is not that high compared to other countries, but when you really needed help, America came through with the bulk of the money: from AIDS in Africa to the tsunami victims, and especially with domestic disasters. The ethic may come from the legacy of building a country out of a raw continent (where helping strangers was contingent on their one day helping you), but helping others out when in need is part of the American way. I also associated American government with a kind of benign competence – maybe out of a collective memory of GIs’ rescuing Western Europe from Nazism and, eventually, Eastern Europe from Communism. I think part of the collective shame is that this didn’t happen this time in America itself – at least quickly enough. It violated a core American value. This is the second basic American value this administration has violated. The other is humane treatment of enemy prisoners in wartime. Perhaps the reason people feel more than simple frustration with Bush – the reason it amounts to anger – is not “Bush-hatred” (although that irrationality exists), but this president’s squandering of so much of what is best about America and his pandering to so much that is worst. I don’t fully understand it. I don’t think it’s malevolence. I think it’s a mixture of arrogance and incompetence. But the damage it is doing to some of the core meaning of America – that this is a country that rescues people who are in dire straits, and never, ever abuses prisoners in its military custody – is deeply distressing. And it will take time to restore that kind of reputation and, yes, honor.

More blogger pressure to get rid of an unqualified boob who got the job because it was previously held by his college room-mate can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and, especially, here.

Keep sending your links in and I’ll keep expanding the list.

A 2003 study reveals the precariousness of New Orleans and the impossibility of adequately protecting it in time for Katrina. All the more reason that evacuation plans should have been ready to go, in place and, if not, for swift federal rescue efforts. (Hat tip: Porkopolis.)

Carpetbagger corrects to say that it was FEMA and not the president who did not give the necessary order to get to work.

Some context from Wikipedia:

Most Chief Justices are nominated to the highest position on the Court without any previous experience on the Court; indeed many, like John Marshall and Earl Warren, without any experience in the entire United States Judiciary.

It remains true, however, according to WaPo,

sitting justices have been elevated to the top job on several occasions but it is was the first time an unconfirmed nominee, who formerly clerked for the outgoing chief justice no less, was named chief justice.

New and not-so-new. And doubtless a smart, time-buying move from the president/

CONFUCIUS HE SAY: Fire Michael Brown.

FIRE MICHAEL BROWN II: “If Mike Brown is left in place, it is more than saying he did a “heck of a job”, it means that by the standards of our times, a “heck of a job” means abject failure. We can do better, and we should force our leaders, no matter what their position is or party they belong to, to do better.” – restlessmania.

Barbara Bush has her Marie Antoinette moment: “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this –this is working very well for them.” Personally, I still can’t sleep for anticipating Trent Lott’s “fantastic new porch.”

Jeff Jarvis adds his voice. If you’re a blogger – right, left or center – and have called for him to be fired, let me know. I’ll link.

The Times-Picayune joins the chorus.

The 2004 National Response Plan explicitly states that, at times of

any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions,

the federal government pre-empts local and state government in its responsibility to act quickly. After 9/11, the administration wisely dispensed with the formalities of deferring to local authorities (which, of course, in this case had already issued a state of emergency as early as August 26). The attempt by the spinners to blame this on the obviously overwhelmed and incompetent local authorities, doesn’t fit with the Bush administration’s own rules. Proof positive can be read here. Keep digging, Karl.

A Christian West Bank town is ransacked by a Muslim mob because of an inter-faith relationship.