From a reader:

It has been hard for me to read The Corner the past few days. I am concentrating on news from New Orleans local media, since I feel the national media (with the exception of Fox) has sensationalized things, if that can be possible. But as a New Orleans native, now living in the Washington DC area, with family in New Orleans (all safely evacuated) I am having a hard time keeping emotion out of ongoing discussions. I would like to offer you both a few quick viewpoints:
First, Mayor Nagin has been doing an outstanding job. A true reform Mayor, he came into office two years ago after literally decades of City hall corruption of all types. He immediately moved to clean up and “fix” City Hall, including inviting the FBI and Justice Department in to rid the city of police corruption. I think highly of him and it is unfair to expect him to complete three decades of preparation in the past two years, especially since hurricane response is one of the many competing priorities he faced. Yes, things went wrong but, believe it or not, many more things went right.
Second, Louisiana’s Democratic Governor has been a miserable failure where it matters most – rallying the citizens. As my brother put it, “I have a mother. I need a Governor.” What that means about Americans’ view of women in top leadership positions now I dont know, but if I were Hillary, I would go to New Orleans and shoot some looters on national television.
Third, having attended a conference in New Orleans on Homeland Security just last year, I can say with some certainty that the city and state have been working for the past five years closely with FEMA and the Offices of Emergency Preparedness of the adjoining states. There are mutually-supportive plans in place and they were wrung out as well as could have been done in advance. The FEMA regional director was highly regarded and I think was doing well. Having said that, however,
Fourth, I think there has been a failure at the Federal level. The First Responders moved in and did their job. The second wave (prepositioned FEMA response units and neighboring states’ assets) moved in and did their job. The third wave (distant Federal support) failed to show. I cannot see how this could happen. The airfield at the Joint Reserve Base at Belle Chasse (across the river) has been conducting flight operations for three days – how could it be that no C-130 loads of bottled water arrived? That some of this water was not airlifted by helicopter to people stranded for four days on bridge overpasses? We got Navy ships from Hawaii to Thailand faster than from Norfolk to Louisiana. I am a retired Navy Commander and I know what I am talking about – this is simply unsat. The President bears ultimate responsibility for that.
Fifth, much has been made of the behavior of some New Orleans policemen. Some have been filmed apparently looting and some have turned in their badges and walked away from the job. I think the bad rep these guys are getting is unfair. There are hundreds who risked their lives to stay on the job during and immediately after the hurricane – there are not many average Americans who would have done that. Some of these guys lost their own homes and families – after this number of days I think it is understandable that some have reached their limit, feel that they have done their duty and quit. Finally, every city has corrupt police officers and the very few who did loot (if in fact they did) are not unique to New Orleans. I love the New Orleans cops.
Sixth, it occurs to me that the apparent slowness of the current military response, compared with that of other recent humanitarian crises around the globe, may in part relate to who is in charge. During past emergencies, the responsible Unified Commander (top dog) has been a commander (and his staff) who have been used to running emergencies: USJFCOM (formerly USLANTCOM; Navy/Marine command traditionally) ran Hurricane Andrew and Haiti just fine; USPACOM (Navy command traditionally) ran part of Tsunami relief fine and other WESTPAC contingencies; USSOUTHCOM (Army command traditionally) has run relief operations in central and South America; and USCENTCOM (Army/Marine command) ran the other part of Tsunami relief fine. Katrina is being run by NORTHCOM (Northern Command, an Air Force command) and this is the first humanitarian emergency ever run by them. I think they are simply not up to it. This may be a matter for subsequent, sober analysis.
Seventh, Speaker Hastert’s remarks about Federal aid for rebuilding New Orleans just delivered Louisiana to the Democrats for the foreseeable future. This is unfortunate and yet another example of the national Republican leadership being off message. Louisiana went for GW, voting Republican for the first time since Reconstruction. There are currently slews of Republican Representatives and one Senator. A non-white, immigrant Republican almost won the last Governor’s race and until Speaker Haster opened his mouth the consensus of opinion was that the results of that election were unfortunate and would probably be reversed. Haster single-handedly changed all that.
Eight and finally, I think that Katrina is going to make a lot of fence-sitters on gun control hop down. The ardent anti-gun folks will never agree that private ownership is ever a good thing, but a lot of people (such as in our DC area) are going to note that, sometimes, you are on your own.