Eric Alterman (The Nation): New Orleans Is Us

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Issue of October 10, 2005
Posted Thursday September 22

New Orleans Is Us
By Eric Alterman

Former Nixon Administration felon turned evangelical preacher Charles Colson recently claimed on his talk-radio program that God "allowed" Katrina to happen as a reminder of the importance of the war on terror and "to get our attention so that we don't delude ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is put things back the way they were and life will be normal again."

I don't approve, but I do see the logic. Katrina has forced open a window through which the media have finally glimpsed the Bush Administration's spectacular incompetence at keeping Americans safe and secure. The evidence had been there for years, but most reporters missed it, hidden as it was by a fog of rhetoric, ideology, political intimidation and tabloidization. But Bush's popularity has nose-dived, Cheney is nowhere to be seen and Karl Rove's curtain has been drawn aside to reveal a plump, powerless wizard whose only talent rests in the realm of illusion. Katrina has also demonstrated how ludicrous it was that in 2004 Bush managed to win his first genuine presidential election victory by playing the "security" card.

In the hurricane's wake, reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have all taken the opportunity to delve into local, state and federal plans for emergency evacuation. The "plan" in each case is exactly the same: chaos. Thanks to this Administration's inexplicable insouciance--together with media's inability or unwillingness to call our attention to it--millions of Americans will die unnecessarily in the event of, say, an attack on a New Jersey chemical plant or a New York nuclear reactor or a devastating earthquake in San Francisco.

I first became aware of the Administration's near-criminal negligence toward this most crucial aspect of its post-9/11 mandate when The New Republic's Jonathan Chait wrote a devastating exposé titled "The 9/10 President" in March 2003. Not only was the Administration ignoring the basics; it was actively sabotaging bipartisan Congressional efforts to begin to do what was necessary, lest the cost encroach on either its war plans or tax cuts. As Chait wrote, "Bush's record on homeland security ought to be considered a scandal. Yet, not only is it not a scandal, it's not even a story, having largely failed to register with the public, the media, or even the political elite."

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