Back from my Summer Vacation

And what a week to start blogging again.
My professional position prevents me from fully articulating the anger I feel with our administration right now. Let me preface my upcoming rant with this: I am a registered independent, I have voted for members of both major parties, and in my job I do my damnedest to remain unbiased (or at least, not to let any personal biases affect my reporting).
But regardless of your political affiliation or personal feelings about our president, it's hard to believe that anyone who's been to the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina in the past 5 days or read the stories of the survivors (some of whom ended up dying anyway from lack of food, water, or medical treatment) or seen the images can say that the state and federal government is truly doing all they can. Our president remained on his ranch for two days after the hurricane first struck the Gulf Coast. TWO days. While literally thousands of victims waited to be rescued as the flood waters rose around them. Some would succumb. And the police officers and rescue workers in New Orleans were so overwhelmed that they could not even stop to count the corpses floating past them. They were focused, rightly so, on saving those who were still alive.
Why weren't our state and federal officials similarly focused on such a goal? When President Bush said today -- without apology -- that the efforts thus far were "unacceptable," he accepted none of the responsibility for the failure. His pledge to finally get help to those who needed it was almost cruel in its timing. Because those who'd needed it most were now dead. More than four days after the hurricane hit, he finally set foot on the ground in Louisiana. More than four days after the hurricane hit--days in which literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of refugees had gone without electricity, showers, and with little food or water--the convoys finally began to show up. The airdrops began. The sandbags were dropped into the breaches in the levees. Military units were activated.
What is "unacceptable" is that our nation has an abundance of food and water, and clothing--and we had the means to get those resources to the hurricane refugees three days ago--and we didn't. And people died because of it. It is tragic to lose hundreds, or thousands, in a natural disaster. But it is criminal to lose hundreds or thousands more to incompetence.