Where is Dick Cheney? and Other Questions

1. Has anyone heard anything from Dick Cheney in months? Not that I miss him, but I'm especially surprised that we haven't heard a peep or any of his usual obscenties during this disaster. I hear that he, like Bush, has been on an extended vacation in his home state, but wouldn't he normally rear his head at a time like this?

2. Why is Bush saying no one knew the levees would break when LA has known all along that they would? Models have shown that even a category 3 hit on New Orleans would compromise them (Katrina was a category 4).

3. Harry Connick, Jr.'s question (Hat tip to Rosie and Prairie Weather:

“How hard it is to take a helicopter or a truck ... it's easy to get to the convention center, we got there with no problem ... how hard is it to take a truck with water or food for these people. I don't understand,” Connick said in an interview ith “Today” host Katie Couric. “They told these people to go to the convention center for help and it's been five days. It's unbearable,” Connick said. He said that while he was at the convention center on Thursday he saw no water or food being distributed to the victims.

4. John's question is actually the same one Newt Gingrich had (from Albany Democrat-herald:

"If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

How can the years since 9/11 have taught us nothing? This horrific saga is like a billboard that shows terrorists just how vulnerable we really are. Wherever bin Laden is (we know he's not in Iraq), I'm sure he's taking notes.

5. Why do the least empowered people in society always get blamed for things like this? If I had a corporate tax cut for every time I've heard, "Well, those people were told to get out, and they didn't" I could afford a quarter tank of gas. I suspect most of the people who stayed weren't looking at Katrina as an opportunity to be featured on the Weather Channel. Many of them chose the lesser of two evils--stay, maybe survive and keep what few belongings they had or leave, lose what little there is (to the real looters), and risk not finding a place to be later. I'm sure there were people who had it in their heart to stay and profit from someone else's misfortune, but I doubt this is the case for many of the poor.

6. Why do the most empowered people in society rarely get blamed for things like this? Those plasma screen raiders have nothing on the "legal" looting the federal government managed to pull off with FEMA's budget over the past several years, including significant amounts designated for securing New Orleans' pesky levees.

New Orleans is not the only place dams are breaking. DC may find itself sandbagging before too long.

Update: Cheney showed up at the White House on Saturday, five days after Katrina hit. He looks well rested, no doubt ready to spring into action. He and Karl Rove were standing off to the side of Bush's Saturday Rose Garden press conference. Maybe part of our homeland security program should include funds for signs that say "In case of national emergency, GET BACK TO WORK!" which administration officials can post on the refrigerators at their favorite vacation spots.