Trent Lott is hopping mad, but as usual he doesn't show anger that well, if he did, I would imagine a lot of people would have gotten an earful by now. For a bigoted racist, he certainly knows how to put the Bush boys through their paces though. After all, look at Mississippi. To hear most people, you would think it was paradise on earth compared to New Orleans, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, Mississippi was initialy hit much harder than most places in Louisiana, with the possible exception of Slidell, Louisiana, which is where the eye of the hurricane actually went through. But Biloxi and Gulfsport Mississippi are practically no-man's lands. Hardly a building is still standing and most of the ante-bellum homes have been destroyed along with the modern convenience stations and greasy spoons. The death toll was initially higher as well, and contagions due to contaminated flood waters have run rampant, causing a number of illnesses and a few deaths. Hand it to Trent, he got the Feds off their lazy sorry asses and demanded action. And remember, a large percentage of his constituents are black, and I for one don't think he gave that the least bit of consideration.
Contrast this and the actions of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour with the relatively incompetent responses of the Louisiana Governor and New Orleans mayor. These people were lost from the beginning and are still in conflict, the mayor teling everyone they have to evacuate, the governor telling them they can not be forced to leave, and nobody else really knowing what to make of the situation. And the shame of their incompetence is remarkably demonstrated by the scores of yellow school busses and other public transportation vehicles which now stand in yet two or three feet at least of flood water, left to sit idle when they could have been used to evacuate citizens who otherwise may have not had a way to get out of the city. Disgusting.
Then there's our poor little lost lamb Mary, Senator Landrieu, who at one time I had fond hopes for in terms of a potential Vice-Presidential nomination in 2008, provided of course Hillary somehow were to fail to get the nomination (two female running mates would just not be practical, even in this supposedly enlightened age), in addition to certain other secret fantasies I have entertaied at various times concerning Mary. Alas, now one fantasy is no more or less likely than the other.
Poor Mary, she just seemed lost, and finally, after all was said and done, she decided she wanted to hit somebody. Well, so do I Mary, but let's not get carried away. Let's face it, the Louisiana folks are just in over their heads. It's just as much their fault as it is the Feds. In fact, initially, it can be legitimately said to be more their fault, but of course the Feds and Bush just seem to have decided they would show they could be just every bit as incompetent as the Louisiana State officials could be, and they proved their point handsomely.
And the reason is historical in nature. The plain facts are, the elected leaders and public officials of Louisiana have just been corrupt and incompetent from the days of Huey Long, who was the last truly effective elected official, both Govrnor and Senator, the state has produced. And Huey of course was assassinated. Since then, the people elected to run the state have seldom done so. The state has in fact been the domain of the Mafia. The elected officials have historically just done what they are told, and therefore have no real experience or tradition of actual leadership.
The true leaders and power brokers of Louisiana have been the "Silver Dollar Sam" Corollas, the Carlos Marcellos. In other words, the oldest continually existing mafia family in the United States, up until Marcello was finally brought down by a Federal sting operation in the 1980's. The Mafia pretty much fell apart after him, though I'm certain they still exist in factions that are relatively powerless in comparison to the glory days of the Louisiana Mafia. Which is the irony in that if a Carlos Marcello or a Silver Dollar Sam were still in active control of Louisiana today the state would have probably reacted faster and more effectively to the coming disaster than what has turned out to be the case.
On the other hand, they are the ones respnsible for Louisiana having such a heritage of corruption and inefficiency and incompetence. That is just the political culture of the state. As such, you can't expect it to be an enclave of statemanship. That is just the sad, hard facts.
