Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (14441)	3/10/2006 11:02:20 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 542010

To me splitting hairs over the issues of a breach or overflow is further demonstration that the gravity of the situation is being overlooked. I don't know what you're looking for. It's pretty much a given that the administration, as well as state and local authorities, screwed up Katrina. People's knowledge of or views on the particulars may vary some but Katrina will go down in history as a screw up. One of the details of it is whether Bush, himself, was appropriately serious and engaged. It would seem that he somehow missed the boat. Another given, I think. So, in that context, is differentiating between topping and breaching splitting hairs? Well, we can look at it from the perspective of the exercise of abstract, critical thinking for its own sake. Topping the levees by a couple of feet makes a very big, very serious mess. It has always been expected that a storm greater than category three hitting NO in the wrong place would top the levees and it was expected this time. That's why evacuations were ordered. As the storm tracked further east, though, it was hoped that topped levees could be avoided. Breached levees, OTOH, have always been a concern in NO as it would be for any city below water level but the probability of that was thought less because it would require both topping-amounts of water plus structural problems with levees. So even as it was recognized that the the results of a breach would be an unmitigated disaster, a breach wasn't expected. So we have a good probability of a huge mess vs a smallish probability of an unmitigated disaster. In the abstract, that differentiation matters. Now, looking at it in the political context, what do we have? We had a breach and poor response to it. We had a lot of finger pointing, charges, and defensive posturing. How does partisanship play in our detail about overflows and breaches? New material came to light that is evidence of Bush being briefed on the potential for overflow and his reaction to it. Anti-Bush partisans claimed it as proof that he fiddled while Rome burned claiming that he was advised of a likely disaster-level result when, in fact, he was advised of a likely big mess. Making that claim was a partisan overreach. I suspect that it started as a simple failure to listen carefully think through the evidence in their enthusiasm over finding a gotcha, a smoking gun. When cooler heads pointed out the error, many acknowledged it. There were news media and blogs all over the place correcting themselves. There remained others either dimmer or more invested in their partisanship that continued to claim that Bush ignored a warning of a breach. And there were some on the other side who, recognizing the acknowledgement of the overreach, tried to turn a reverse-gotcha into a broader rehabilitation of Bush. Shame on both of them, IMO. It would seem to me that both purely partisan excesses would be just the sort of thing you would disapprove given your concern over our sorry state of partisanship. But the common American thinks in very simple terms. Indeed, and it could be our downfall. Critical thinking seems to be a lost art, which is bad enough, but when you add partisan sloganeering and hyperbole to the mix, it's a disaster worse than Katrina in the making.