Let's all take a deep breath

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan called President Bush a "lying b__tard," "filth spewer," "evil maniac," "f__king hypocrite," "fuehrer" and the world's "biggest terrorist" who is committing "blatant genocide" and "waging a nuclear war" in Iraq. More recently, she even blamed President Bush for causing the hurricane and has accused the US military of “occupying New Orleans.”
It now appears that Bush and everybody else associated with Katrina's federal rescue effort have little to apologize for, save some poorly prepared public statements. In fact, as chronicled by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Jack Kelly, the so-called villainous, incompetent feds actually performed quite well this time - in comparison with past efforts. "The federal response here was faster than [in Hurricane] Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne," a National Guardsman involved in the Katrina rescue effort told Kelly. In fact, the federal government pretty much met its standard timelines, but the volume of support provided during the [first] 72-96 hour[s] was unprecedented. After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, National Guard troops didn't arrive on the scene (in strength) for five days and FEMA's response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999 - with the agency then under the vaunted leadership of President Clinton's appointee James Lee Witt - was fraught with month-long delays. However, after Katrina's floodwaters hit, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, yes, FEMA - was on the scene (in force) in only three days.
In just the first week after New Orleans' levees had been breached; more than 32,000 people had been rescued by Coast Guard helicopters, shelter, food and medical care had been provided to more than 180,000 evacuees and the Army Corps of Engineers had all but repaired the breaches and had begun pumping water out of New Orleans. Unnoted by even Administration supporters, is the fact that these extraordinary first week's efforts took place while roving bands of Katrina "victims" were shooting at the rescuers. Considering the complete collapse of city and state rescue efforts - where even the most basic stipulations of New Orleans' evacuation plan were ignored - the federal operation was a model of efficiency.
At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, we saw the failure of 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina passed by and the 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should have taken charge in helping the aged, the sick and the women with babies to safety took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape. The New Orleans police, their numbers cut by deserters who left their posts to look after their families, engaged in running gun battles all day long to stay alive and protect people. It was the character and conduct of its people that made the New Orleans disaster unique.
The real disaster of Katrina was that society broke down. An entire community could not cope. Liberalism, the idea that good intentions and government programs can build a Great Society, was exposed as a fraud. After the trillions of tax dollars for welfare, food stamps, public housing, job training and education that had been poured out since 1965, poverty remained pandemic and when the police vanished, the community disappeared and men took to the streets and preyed on women and the weak. Stranded for days in a pool of fetid water, few took the initiative and almost everyone waited for the government to come save them.
The area affected by the storm was greater in area than the entire United Kingdom and everyone in America, particularly Democrats, professed shock that everything could not be brought back to normal in a matter of days. The President has now set forth a conservative agenda to rebuild the area that includes enterprise zones and job training in the hope of overcoming "generational" poverty caused by racism. The "generational" poverty in New Orleans was actually caused by the welfare system created by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and his "war on poverty." Prior to Katrina, about half the population of New Orleans was living on government handouts that were controlled by a black mayor, a black city council and enforced by a black police chief. The entire structure of New Orleans was one of corruption and vote buying, perpetuated by using the welfare system.
Mr. Bush believes that simply giving more money directly to poor Blacks will not help them to restore home ownership to levels, as high as when Lyndon Johnson decided to help "them poor black folks." It was Lyndon Johnson's racism, and his belief that blacks were not capable of making a living for themselves, that created a welfare system which has discouraged marriage and home ownership in the black community. The best fix for New Orleans is the enterprise zones and minority job creation programs that the President has proposed; however, Senators Kennedy and Clinton will, once again, try to turn Katrina recovery into welfare programs that do more harm than good to the black community.

Thanks to NewsMax.com