Haiti and Katrina

A common thread in stories about the mobilization of US aid for Haiti is that the Obama administration is "determined not to repeat the mistakes of Katrina". Katrina started Bush's long slide into the least popular president in recent history.

Most of the common knowledge about Katrina is false. News anchors rushed stories on air without bothering to verify them and outright misrepresented many facts. The public at large thought that the Superdome was full of people were were trapped for days because of government inaction. In fact, the Superdome was a staging area. The people who were in the Superdome when the flooding started were taken out fairly promptly. They were quickly replaced by people rescued from their roofs who were taken out and replaced, etc. One network showed the unused medical facilities on an air craft carrier without mentioning that the doctors had set up emergency centers on the mainland in order to be closer to the refugees. The networks reported that people were shooting at rescue helicopters but later investigations could not find any proof.

A lot of things worked as well as they could, given the problems on the ground. Popular Mechanics took a close look at the myths of Katrina.

Much of the anger against Bush was whipped up by the anti-Bush crowd. As the water was still rising, they were sure that Bush had caused Katrina itself by not approving the Kyoto Protocols or had cut funds that would have shored up the levees to pay for the Iraq war. Governor White of Louisianan also slowed things down. The government could not begin providing aid until she officially asked for it and she took an extra day before signing the request over partisan bickering.

Bush didn't help things. Air Force One did a fly-over of the damage making Bush look more like a spectator than a hands-on leader. Bush explained later that he wanted to spare local law enforcement the burden of a Presidential visit. He should have given this explanation before Air Force One landed in DC.

If didn't help that the point person for relief efforts didn't seem to be taking the job seriously or that his resume was pretty thin.

The logistics in Haiti was terrible. The port is closed and the airport is already overloaded. If this disaster had happened during Bush's watch, the left would already be calling for his head (again).

So far, the Obama administration has done everything it could but there is no easy way to rescue a city of two million with that much damage. I hope that Obama's critics show more class than Bush's and concentrate their efforts on aiding the Haitians instead of attacking the President.