Reverse The Charges

The lead editorial in today's NY Post:

The full story of Hurricane Katrina is beginning to emerge, and turning out differently than the unmitigated disaster the early, oft-hysterical, reporting led America to expect.

And not just in terms of the death toll, now certainly to be far below the thousands predicted by a panicked New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

It's also clear that indictments of President Bush for failing to provide effective relief were wrong, too.

This isn't to minimize the scale of the disaster; it was one of the worst storms to strike North America in recent history — and the damage was commensurate.

But evidence is mounting that state and local officials in Louisiana and Mississippi — and not Bush — bear much of the blame for the failures that did occur. . .

At the same time, new evidence is reaffirming charges that local officials (Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Nagin) dropped the ball.

Not just as the hurricane struck. But in their failure to properly plan, despite years of warnings.

"They're where we were in 1992, exactly," said Col. Julie Jones, director of law enforcement for Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Jones was referring to her state's lack of preparedness for Hurricane Andrew — and all the steps taken to deal with hurricanes since then. Steps that Louisiana failed to take.

A more definitive analysis of the response awaits. But assigning blame for hyping Katrina's toll and unfairly accusing Bush & Co. is easy: The media did it.

Yes, a fabled city that's suddenly 80 percent underwater is going to elicit colorful reports — especially when state and local officials publicly and repeatedly pushed the panic button.

Perspective, however, was utterly missing in most of the early reporting — and there's been precious little in most of the subsequent stories.

And as for blaming Bush, you've got to wonder: Would a Democratic president have gotten the same treatment?

(via reader Ken R.)