It was a dangerous place to be last year, and this year with a murder rate, that is on pace to shoot up over twenty eight percent, it looks even worse.  This stat by itself should prove that we don’t have enough boots on the ground, and it may be too late to try to wrestle control back from the thugs that are trying to take over.  Maybe the Democrats are correct, we cannot possibly expect to win every conflict that we put ourselves in the middle of, can we?

                Look at the reconstruction efforts.  It is nothing but an exercise in corruption that even the first Richard Daley would be proud of.  Some areas look the same as two years ago, as if nobody has been in the city or even attempt to rebuild.  There are still areas that are flooded and with hurricane season here again this year, the areas that have dried off will be swamped again.

                Ooops sorry!  You probably thought I was talking about Iraq.  No need to, we are winning there.  From the very beginning Hurricane Katrina has been a lesson in how not to run a city or state.  Almost nothing has been done in a way that the rest of the country could look at and model as way of getting the job done.  I only say “Almost” because I am nearly positive that they have done something correct, it just might have flown under the MSM’s radar.  Not intentionally though.  The MSM has been the biggest cheerleader of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, and the biggest critic of any federal help.

                The news coverage on the two year anniversary, to include the specials has been driving me bonkers.  Even with 20/20 hindsight, the media cannot get the facts straight.  All of the responsibility for lose of life, property damage, and long waits continually goes to the guy who had the least responsibility, President George Bush.  The two people with the most responsibility for the above listed lose of life, property damage and long waits still getting a pass, and reelected in Rays’ case.

                Why didn’t Bush send in the National Guard sooner?  That is the question that was asked over and over in the weeks that followed Katrina.  Watching some of these Katrina Anniversary shows some on the left are attempting to perpetuate this misconception.   If you are a student of history or know anything about the Constitution you should know that due to Posse Cumotatis, which basically lays out the rules in which the military to include the Army National Guard can be deployed on American soil, you will understand that in times of emergency the Governor of the afflicted State must request that the ARMY National Guard be deployed in his or her state.  The funniest part of this argument is that when the left tries to argue this fact, I have been told that Governor Blanco asked a day before Katrina hit the Gulf coast, Governor Blanco was unaware of an open microphone while she was speaking with one of her advisors and she admits that should have asked for the National Guard 24 hours ago when the President called and offered to deploy troops.

                Whose responsibility is it to evacuate the city of New Orleans?  Not the President of the United States of America, he has other things to take care of.  If you really want to take the responsibility away from the individual to keep his family safe, you might be able to make a case for the city government to assume responsibility for his safety.  Where was Mayor Nagin or any of the other City of New Orleans elected officials?  Did they not recommend to the citizens of their city that evacuation was the best course of action to take?  I saw the video of all those school buses just sitting in a parking lot in three to four feet of water.  What was the Emergency Response Plan for the city?  Did they even have one?  If they did why did they not put it into place?  The Mayor and the Governor conspired to keep the Red Cross and the Salvation Army out of Louisiana.  The reasoning behind it was a little bit goofy and a lot flawed.  Both of these relief organizations were told not to come into the state of Louisiana by both Nagin and Blanco not to enter the state because they did not want those affected by the hurricane to linger in Louisiana.   

                Yes, there were lapses and errors in judgment by FEMA.  The situation was not handled very well in the wake of the disaster.  But, the situation was a lot bigger than it should have been.  In my opinion there should have been a mandatory evacuation ordered by either Nagin or Blanco.  The order never came, and the rest is history.  The only job FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the National Guard should have been doing is rescuing the few that were unable to get out.  The authorities in that area knew that this was not going to be your run of the mill weather phenomenon days before it made landfall.  The National Weather Service, if my memory serves me correctly, warned that this was going to be a major hurricane.  The levees were designed to handle a hurricane up to a Category 3.  It was known one to two days before Katrina came to visit that she was going to be at least a Category 3 or better.  Two days with all of those buses should have removed most of those who were stuck in the danger zones.  

                New Orleans did not even take the brunt of the hurricane.  Mississippi did, and they are a lot further along in the process of recovering from the structural and economic damage done.  And the residents there did not even get as much Federal help as New Orleans has.  The biggest problem with reconstructing New Orleans is the efforts made by the City government as well as State Agencies.  Last I checked President Bush does not have any sway in either of the previously mentioned branches of government.

                So I am a firm believer in the Democrats in the House and Senate.  It is time to make a speedy withdrawal of all of our Federal workers and dollars from the City of New Orleans.