VoxOrion wrote:I'm not minimizing the disaster. I worked very closely with folks who were cleared out from New Orleans and moved to Philly for months after - aside from maybe TV, I'm certain I've had more exposure to actual Katrina victims than any of you. These were people that had to go home to bury members of their family, despite being middle-class folks who maintained employment because they worked for a government agency (and worked 12-16 hour days for months at a time).
I'm talking about the facination with the event as a watershed moment in American politics. I'm talking about the outrageous stories and conspiracies (that I heard straight from horses mouths) about what "really happened" in New Orleans. I'm talking about stories about cannibalism, rape gangs, black ops explosions heard near levees - the entire nine yards. The folks from NO had a more nuianced view, the same individual would spout about the morons who wouldn't leave and are pissing away the money while claiming a friend of a friend heard the explosions.
The mismanagement of the disaster, the dire implications derived from it, and the targeting of blame is something that is a part of the Bush legacy that is much more important to his enemies than to regular Joe. I can't believe a poll of 3000 Americans would reveal Katrina as the "end of the end" for Bush. War, economy, then probably corruption would be third, and that's assuming not catching bin Laden wasn't a separate item from the war.
All kidding aside, you guys are talking about the prospect of a disaster during the RNC with glee - a theme all over the web today from Michael Moore to Howard Dean.
You really can't argue the chronology though. I mean, there were other things too--Harriet Miers and immigration reform hurt him among conservatives. But for regular Americans, Katrina was a shock, and Bush's popularity, already vulnerable, suffered irreparably. It doesn't matter if people on the street don't remember exactly why they stopped liking Bush, the point is they did, and his popularity never recovered.
Now, as to what happened, blowing up levees nonses, of course not. New Orleans was and is in many ways a very dysfunctional, violent, poverty ridden city with a longstanding culture of dependency and little entrepreneurialism--in many ways the worst of the old South, in contrast to Atlanta, Nashville, even Dallas and Houston. Louisiana of course also has a longstanding culture of corruption.
On the other hand, there was and is a sense in Louisiana that Katrina changed Louisiana politics forever. The election of Bobby Jindal probably had a lot to do with Katrina and frustation with the ole boy network that had mismanaged the state for generations.
Finally, there's no glee here. A lot of anxiety and concern, and hopes that the storm falls apart. Because if it's even close to as bad as Katrina, I don't think New Orleans ever recovers.
