I, and all my neighbors, had to gut our houses. Everything was piled out front -- furniture, appliances, carpeting, cabinetry, lawn mowers. clothing, sheetrock and even the insulation from inside the walls. It was piled so high that one could not see the houses from the street. We expected government to remove it of course, but life isn't simple.

By law, garbage could only be removed from public property. If a garbage man set foot on a homeowner's lawn, that was trespass. Since there was insufficient space between the sidewalk and the street to hold the debris, the parish council had to change the garbage law.

By law, the parish council has to hold public meetings which have to be announced in the public records a certain number of days in advance.

It was estimated that there were 17 years worth of household debris on people's front lawns. Where do you put it all? The landfills couldn't possibly hold it, but you can't just open a landfill willy-nilly. By law, the government has to be concerned about ground water quality, air quality, etc. And where would one get the land in the first place? Take it by eminent domain?

As a stopgap measure, the government increased the height limit on existing landfills to 60 feet above grade. The NIMBY crowd had a fit and went to court to get an injunction against it.

The practical effect was delay debris removal for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Although the media blamed government failure (Bush can rebuild Iraq, but he can't take out the garbage), I submit to you that government was functioning properly within the legal confines of our democratic system. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Katrina happened on Bush's watch, so he has to take the heat for it. That's the way the political cookie crumbles. Nevertheless, I still submit that government at all levels did as good as any human organization could be reasonably be expected to do under the circumstances. Maybe if we have a dozen or so disasters of equal magnitude in rapid succession, government might be expected to do better.

But none of that is my point. The real question here is one of TRUST. Frankly, I would prefer an effective (large or small) government bureaucracy to help defeat radical Islamic threats to the US. I would like an effective (large or small) government bureaucracy to effectively fight the war in Iraq Each to his own is hardly going to prevent another 9/11 or win in Iraq. I understand that, by necessity, much of these fights will be waged out of sight. So, I (like many Americans) needs to feel that we can trust this administration.

But what we saw during Katrina was an administration (however good or poor you judge their response), making repeated (and consistently optimistic) statements to the press which were grossly at odds with the facts on the ground. I mean (to give one example) it took them practically a week to discover that thousands of people were trapped at the dome despite the fact that it was all over the news for days. Even if we don't blame the administration for the fact that all those people were trapped at the dome, we should expect that they KNOW about it and tell the truth about it.

Rightly or wrongly, for many Americans, I think it was a chance to compare the consistently sunny rhetoric of this administration with our own eyes.

So (to give one example), when Cheney announced two years ago that the insurgency was on its last legs, it seems for many Americans that they are witnessing Katrina all over.

You might think the administration's response was dandy. I will not argue with your personal experience. But most Americans would disagree, and I think that is what we are talking about here: a lost generation of Republicans.

For reference purposes, or full disclosure if you prefer, my roof took extensive wind damage, and the house flooded deep enough to wipe out everything that wasn't above waist high.

Following the storm, the government did everything a reasonable person could expect from government. The supposed "failures" are the product of the unreasonable expectations of Liberal Think. They are the legacy of FDR, LBJ, etc. paternalistic philosophy.

Were there failures? You bet there were, but that's what a reasonable person would expect from a massive bureaucracy handling a massive disaster. Bureaucracies are not agile organizations flexible enough to tailor individual responses to every storm victim's situation. They are only capable of blunderbuss responses. Believe me, if this had happened during a Democratic administration, the result would have been the same except that it would have cost the taxpayer twice as much.

I was just using a shorthand there, presuming that most readers know the basic status of prayer in school.

Heh.

At the present it is very difficult for the public to judge Bush's success in fighting radical Islam. It is difficult to judge claims of progress in Iraq. It is hard to judge just how likely that there will be major terrorist attack.

Fairly or unfairly, I think Katrina shifted public presumptions of competence. For the first time Americans saw the jarring dissonance between Bush's sunny optimism and the reality of failure on the ground

A roundup of thoughts on Karl Rove?s legacy, from comments on NYTimes.com and around the Web....

And, ultimately, it’s decision-makers, not advisers, who get the blame for that. To paraphrase Rove’s predecessor, “It’s the President, stupid.”

Exactly. That was my take when the Rove resignation was announced—the portrayal of Rove as evil genius is part of a narrative that portrays GWB as an idiot. His the credit. His the blame.

I was just using a shorthand there, presuming that most readers know the basic status of prayer in school.

Most may know the basics, but some probably think that an individual praying at a school is illegal. I have seen too many people say "Prayer in school is illegal" to further their notion that liberals in American are persecuting Christians, and making personal religion illegal. I couldn't let it go uncorrected.

Besides 1992, what has Carville done lately?

Blah blah blah. So all this "prayer in public school is illegal" self victimization talk is pure crap.

I was just using a shorthand there, presuming that most readers know the basic status of prayer in school.

I'm not feeling victimized by the current situation, given that I'm an anti-theist. My point is simply that, liberal fears to the contrary, there has hardly been a shift toward religious values being enforced by the federal government in recent years. Indeed, most all the movement has been in the other direction.

Prayer in public schools? Still illegal.

Uh, since when? Prayer has always been legal in school, individual or in groups. It's only illegal for the school to sponsor it or make involvement compulsory. Sponsorship may even be legal so long as every religion's prayers were sponsored equally, a daunting task given the range and variety of religions and denominations.

Ever year my church takes part in the "See you at the pole" prayer where students meet at their school's flag pole to pray before the start of classes. Most schools have an FCA (Fellowship of Christian athletes) that regularly meets and prays at school. So all this "prayer in public school is illegal" self victimization talk is pure crap.