MORE ON KATRINA BY BEN STEIN

More on Katrina again with thanks to:
Ben Stein writing in the American Spectator
Published 9/12/2005

Fact: Katrina was a devastating storm. It left terrible damage to innocent people's lives and to property throughout the Gulf South.

Fact: There have been other storms as damaging and some far more damaging. What, then, is different about this storm? Here are a few tentative thoughts.

First, the incompetence of the local and state authorities in Louisiana and especially New Orleans was breathtaking. To issue a mandatory evacuation order without providing means of transport is almost criminally irresponsible. To take citizens to shelters where they would be beaten, robbed, and raped, and to provide no police protection for them was astoundingly incompetent. To allow armed gangs to shoot at rescuers was almost beyond belief.

Second, the response of the federal government is described as slow, and it was slow at first. But can anyone name a natural disaster in which more federal troops, supplies, and money have been dispatched as quickly as they have been done in this disaster? Bush's response has not been unusually bad, but amazingly powerful and swift. In other hurricanes, survivors have been left for weeks on their own. In Katrina's case, the whole affected area has been covered with money and aid and troops to restore order on a scale and with speed never seen before.

Third, the networks and newspapers have been quick to cry racism because so many of the victims were black. This is total nonsense. New Orleans is a mostly black city. Obviously, most of the victims of the storm would be black. No one has been able to point to a single instance in which black victims were mistreated because of their race by whites. In fact, just the opposite has happened. The whole story is of rescues and salvation by people of all races aimed at people of all races. In a gesture never seen before, the whole heart of the nation has taken in poor, bereft black families and sheltered them absolutely without regard to race. This is a mirror of the basic goodness of Americans and the disappearance of racism as an acceptable action basis of American life. It is also a measure of the total absence of racism in the heart of George W. Bush. The media may play this as a story of race versus race, but that is pure incendiary fantasy, and dangerous nonsense.

What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.

They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush's neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.

In the meantime, George Bush does not lash out, does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us. I don't know how he does it, but we are very lucky he does. As for truth, it eventually may be salvaged from the flooded neighborhoods of The Crescent City, but not as long as there is a lie to use to hurt an honest man trying to do the best he can, and hundreds of thousands of brave, tireless men and women who do more than point fingers and tell tales. The Katrina story is a disgrace to the people who are "reporting" it while pouring gasoline on a fire. They and their crusade against George Bush are the real stories, and they are dismal ones.


Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in California. He is a frequent guest on Fox News Program Cavuto on Business.

LESSONS FROM KATRINA

Hurricane Katrina has been no friend to the left wing.
New Orleans has been under Democrat control for generations, as has much of Louisiana's state apparatus. You can trace Democrat influence back to the days when Democrats spent many of their nights in white robes making sure that black Louisianans stayed on the plantation where they belonged.
According to Democrat and left wing theory, New Orleans should have been Heaven on Earth, especially for its majority black population. After all, from the New Deal right on through L.B.J.'s War on Poverty, money was poured into this region ostensibly to eradicate poverty.
Katrina has torn away the protective curtain and revealed to the world just how miserable a failure these leftists have been.
In a time of life and death crisis, most of the poor were left to fend for themselves, with no provision put into action to get them out of harm's way before Katrina had broken the levees. An evacuation plan had been drawn up in New Orleans some six years ago, yet provisions of that plan calling for use of public transit vehicles and school buses to get people out of the city were never put into action.
Democrats have been convincing many that they are the only ones looking out for the poor, for minorities and for the little guy. Yet the reality is that an area of the nation heavily under control of Democrats did not deliver what the rhetoric says.
The reality is that a Republican president and administration alone made things happen in a big way. This is not to excuse the fact that federal response was sluggish, but that is to address another issue, namely, the failure of big government bureaucracies to ever move quickly.
There are many lessons to be learned from Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast. And one of the biggest is to understand that a Democrat welfare state is not the answer to solving the problems of the little guy.

DOWN BUT NEVER OUT

Less than two weeks from the time Hurricane Katrina ravaged portions of the Gulf Coast, Americans are again demonstrating their ability to rise to the challenge.
Katrina broke levees and allowed one of America's great cities to be plunged into almost unspeakable horror. The storm's savage winds pushed ocean water two miles inland in parts of Mississippi.
Yes, the usual crowd of doom and gloom sayers are out there still trying to score political points on the misery of Katrina's victims. The usual race baiters are out there trying to convince us that Republicans want black people to drown and government failed in a time of crisis.
Putting aside this insane rhetoric, let us look at the facts.
The greatest lesson to be learned thus far from Katrina is a lesson long preached by conservatives: that government never has been and never will be the answer to human problems.
Yes, government has its place. It provides armed forces to defend the nation when it is attacked by enemies. It regulates any number of activities, some good and far too many bad. But when a crisis on the scale of Katrina strikes, government, like all human establishments can and often is overwhelmed, just as are individuals.
We will not dwell on the doom and gloom any further. Instead, look at the outpouring of financial aid thus far sent by people across the nation to help the helpless. Look at the huge number of agencies and groups and churches that are at this moment easing pain and suffering. Look even at the unquenchable spirit of New Orleans organizers who are already saying that Mardi Gras 2006 will go on as planned, albeit scaled down a great deal under the circumstances. Rejoice in the news that the number of dead appears to be far less than what some were estimating just a few days ago. Look at the members of the military, police, fire fighters and volunteers who are even now performing duties almost beyond belief. Look at the pumps that are back working to rid New Orleans of contamination and water.
In the darkest moments of American history, our people have seldom failed to rise to the challenge. From Valley Forge to Hurricane Katrina, the strength and faith of America remains, with God's help, unbroken.

BEN STEIN ON KATRINA & GEORGE BUSH

With everything from the Race Card to the Global Warming Alarm being employed by the leftist media and some exploitive Democrats, Talk Radio Review turns to Ben Stein for his thoughts on the current situation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
In a piece titled "Get Off His Back", published on Sept. 2, Ben Stein writes as follows:


A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.

6.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

7.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.

8.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue.

9.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization.

10.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.

11.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.

12.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day.

13.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.

God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless those helping them, starting with George Bush.


(Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in California. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in The American Spectator. He is also a frequent guest on Fox News Economic & Investment Programs.)

ENFORCE THE LAW NOW IN NEW ORLEANS

As might be expected, law enforcement in New Orleans appears to be in a state of paralysis.
As Talk Radio Review pointed out recently, liberalism has feminized those whose responsibility it is to enforce the rule of law. Under the guise of compassion and so-called professionalism, far too many of today's police have been taught by college professors that they must be armed social workers rather than head-knocking cops.
The plague of liberalism extends to the military where available force is often withheld lest we upset the enemy or people in foreign countries. Liberalism seeks to weaken the military using false notions that wars and insurrections can be won without killing adversaries.
Before TV cameras today, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Attorney General Gonsalez assured us that more and more law enforcement boots will be put on the ground in New Orleans to guarantee law and order. But what good are enforcement personnel, both civilian and military, if they continue to be constrained by the ACLU and other liberal power groups who continue to insist that it is wrong for cops and soldiers to use their weapons when confronted by rampant criminals taking advantage of a city in crisis.
Where, oh where, are General George Patton, Rambo and Superman when you need them? Clearly non of them are working for the Bush Administration at the moment, and none of them are on the way to restore order in a great city now under siege.
Reports have come in of people in the Convention Center being shot by robbers and rapists. Shots have been fired at aircraft near the Superdome. Other chilling reports are coming in of gangs of thugs looting, robbing and assaulting. Not bad enough that the innocent residents of New Orleans are flood refugees, that they are hungry and out of drinking water, they must now also be set upon by snakes worse than the ones in the form of reptiles.
The order must be given by someone willing to break the chains of liberal inaction. Restore civilized behavior at once in New Orleans. Shoot on sight anyone failing to immediately obey the order of any law enforcement officer or military policeman. This is what enforcement must always be in times of great crisis. And we can think of no greater crisis than the ongoing one in New Orleans.