The “poor and black have been left behind” meme is now in full swing on CNN and MSNBC. I just heard Lester Holt ask Tom Delay “most of the people who’ve been left behind are poor and black what does that say about our country right now?” Delay rightly answered that most of the refugees bused to Houston are poor and black too.

But let’s be honest about all this. Would it make sense any other way? Why the feigned surprise? I’m not saying the situation is right or good. Nothing about this situation is right or good. But for nearly a week we’ve been told that the poor don’t have the means to leave. They don’t have cars. They don’t have extended social networks which can take care of them, etc etc. We’ve also been told the obvious fact that the majority of N.O. residents are black. And now suddenly people are shocked that the unfortunate souls left in New Orleans are poor and black? How exactly could it have worked out otherwise? Under what scenario would people expect that rich people would be crowding into the Superdome as poor people watched from relative comfort elsewhere?

Similarly, we’re increasingly hearing the suggestion that order hasn’t been achieved because the government cares less about poor black people. Spare me. This is such grotesque bad faith. Where is there one scintilla of evidence for those motives to be ascribed to Bush or the government in general?

There are all sorts of things to be shocked or dismayed or disappointed by, but this is rhetorical point scoring at its cheapest and most disingenuous.