Let’s play the hurricane blame game!

• Clark Stooksbury has a great take-down of spurious appeals to federalism by some of the President’s defenders:

Are [Hugh] Hewitt and [Christopher] Ruddy so deluded that they believe that the president and his advisors carefully read through the Constitution and the opinions of Learned Hand before deciding if they have the power to act? Bush had no concerns about federalism when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act, or when they went to the Supreme Court to override state governing the use of medical marijuana.The real issue concerns the President’s leadership.

It is hard to imagine any other plausible president — Clinton, Gore, Kerry, McCain, Buchanan — dithering the way that President Bush did in the aftermath of the hurricane. If Louisiana state officials were dragging their feet; I’m sure that President McCain, for example, would have got on the horn and found out what the hell the problem was, instead of waiting for paperwork to be filled out in triplicate. I doubt that President Kerry would stand around, patting his FEMA director on the back, or look forward to sittin’ on Trent Lott’s porch while people were still dying.

• Jesse Walker asks if the chaos in New Orleans represents the rule or the exception to what usually happens after major disasters.
• A disturbing account of people flipping out because Thomas Nelson Publishers is donating 100,000 Bibles to victims of Katrina in addition to a matching contribution plan for donations made by their employees.