Post-Katrina Liberalism

George Will - September 13, 2005 - TownHall.com

America's always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing has overflowed its banks, and last Sunday on ``This Week'' Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois' freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content. Unfortunately, it included the requisite lament about the president's inadequate ``empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government's ``historic indifference'' and its ``passive indifference'' that ``is as bad as active malice.'' The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the ``war on poverty'' that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of antipoverty spending, strictly defined.

The senator is called a ``new kind of Democrat,'' which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash --much of it spent through liberalism's ``caring professions'' -- to cope with cultural collapse.

We are witnessing the most amazing spectacle. Though "government" failed fairly woefully in the New Orleans disaster when Katrina hit, the people of America were spectacular. That even included many of the people in government. With this clear pattern that individual initiative is much more effective than government program, politicians of every stripe, from liberal to conservative, are proclaiming that what we need to do is ...... increase government and constrain individuals and the private sector.

Are these people lunatics? Did they not just watch a Mayor leave nearly 1000 buses sitting idle, while he invited people to come sit at the Superdome. He did this totally against the plan that had been put together. He did this on the spur of the moment. He then turned to another government agency and said, "Now it is your problem".

George Bush, arguably a conservative even if some conservatives reject that he deserves the label, is now considering allowing the federal government to take over responsibility even where the Governor and local officials oppose this. I am sure this will be done so that the real concern of the Mayor can be addressed. The Mayor did not want to use the buses because he was afraid that if anything went wrong, the City of New Orleans would be sued. If George has his way, the Mayor will not have to worry about being sued. They can sue the federal government instead.

That way the judge can give each person who is unhappy with the government service millions instead of thousands. However no public official will be at fault. Only the taxpayer will be at fault .... and only the taxpayer will pay. Thanks George.