Learning Necessary Lessons

Thomas Lifson doesn't want to kick New Orleans and Louisiana when they're so devastated, but he says we'd be "deluding ourselves and laying the foundations for future suffering, if we don’t examine the human failures which have turned a natural disaster into a tragedy."

Interestingly enough, it looks like most of the finger-pointing is originating in New Orleans itself and landing in the direction of the federal government. Bryan Preston (via Michelle Malkin) is infuriated that New Orleans' head of emergency operations, Terry Ebbert, did not utilize hundreds of the city's own buses to shuttle to safety thousands of those now stranded prior to all hell breaking loose.

One emergency manager with half a clue and a couple hundred drivers could have more or less saved New Orleans from turning into Mad Max territory. Terry Ebbert can blame everyone else all he wants, but this crisis is almost entirely his fault.

As Mr. Lifson reminds us, this isn't the time to pile on New Orleans. But with the mayhem of looting, murder, rape, and God knows what else already occurring, this situation only promises to get uglier as the hoodlums terrorizing the city encounter ever more troops moving into area in the next couple days. Pity a little common sense didn't prevent it.