The president obviously was just stunned

Trent Lott told CNN that it’s only people in the media who are asking whether rescue efforts were hampered by all the National Guard units being in Iraq. Anderson Cooper, doing a quieter version of his Howard Beale moment yesterday with Mary Landrieu, said no, there’s a guy down the street here who just said that to me.

Lott said of Bush’s tour of the wreckage: “The president obviously was just stunned”. Uh no, that’s his normal expression.

The BBC showed a large group of stranded refugees (and I honestly don’t understand the problem black leaders seem to have with that term) in New Orleans, getting no help at all from the authorities, then pulled the camera back to show 20 cops a block away, all focusing their attention on a single looter.

If somebody would like terms about which to get pissy when applied to American cities, how about “shoot to kill policy” and “urban warfare” (the latter being the conditions under which FEMA is operating, according to its head, Michael Brown). Or the commander of the National Guard promising to “put down” violence “in a quick and efficient manner,” using guard troops back from Iraq and “highly proficient in the use of lethal force.”