I wrote this on Friday evening as New Orleans lay dying. I listened to nonsense spewing out of the mouth of Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) who was undergoing a grilling by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Cooper asked Lott on behalf of a New Orleans resident, why weren’t more troops and FEMA pre-positioned.

“You know Anderson, it’s only the media that is raising this issue,” Lott said.

“No, no sir it is not,” Anderson interrupted. “I’m asking that question on behalf of a resident of New Orleans.”

Lott waxed indignant about having to answer these questions and echoed the main talking point of all the Federal and state officials who had spent the previous week congratulating themselves on their colossal failure in helping the dying people of New Orleans.

“This is not the time to be complaining,” Lott said. A few second later he said, “I don’t feel all this complainin’ myself.”

This was the same line used by every other public official — it’s not the time to assign blame. One might add that they needed time to get their stories straight.

Lott lost a house but he has the means to build a house wherever he wants so his “I’m in this too” line played a little hollow. Like others who were trying hard to put lipstick on the pig, he kept talking about all the thousands of troops that were on their way and would continue to come.

Cooper neglected to ask Lott if those troops had the ability to raise the dead, especially those that had died in the last five days after the passing of Hurricane Katrina. He wouldn’t ask that question, but I would.

If I seem bitter and angry, it is because I am. But my anger is nothing compared to the anger of the people of New Orleans whose city resembled a devastated Third World country where rats ate the bodies of the dead in the streets of the wealthiest country in the world.

And where in all this was President George W. Bush?

On Tuesday, when bodies were floating down the streets of New Orleans and Mayor Ray Nagin was desperately issuing calls for food, transport and medical assistance, Bush was getting a guitar lesson in Texas.

At about the same time, one of the little people accosted Condoleezza Rice while the Secretary of State was on an expensive shoe buying spree. Indignant at being accosted so, she ordered goons to hustle the uppity woman away.

Rice would have been heartened by Rush Limbaugh’s defense of Rice’s practice of “our way of life” which he accused those complaining of the slow relief effort of trying to indict.

Limbaugh was obviously also incensed that the media, who seemed to find their backbone in covering this catastrophe also went the extra mile and noted that the vast majority of those herded into the squalor of the Superdome, and dying there and on the streets, were poor and black.

A totally clueless FEMA Director Michael Brown also seemed to reinforce Limbaugh’s bias against the poor, losers in the American capitalist game, because they have a welfare state mentality, could not afford a car or transportation out of New Orleans.

It reminded me of an old New York Daily News headline in the bad old days of federal inattention to New York City. In this case the headline would read “Feds to New Orleans: Drop Dead.”

When he wasn’t being torn away from his seemingly never ending rest and relaxation in Crawford, Bush was giving the most inarticulate and uninspired speeches of his Presidency, which for him is no easy feat.Bush first made the understatement of the year when he said the Federal response was “inadequate.”

On Friday afternoon standing in an area of New Orleans cleared of corpses, rubble and angry people, Bush had the crowd of self-congratulators rolling on the floor (from a transcript provided by The New York Times:

    “Here’s what I believe: I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans.

    (APPLAUSE)

    I believe the town where I used to come — from Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself, occasionally too much. . .”

    (LAUGHTER)

Funny. I’m sure the people still trapped in their attics appreciated it.

Two hours after Bush’s joke, New Orleans police issued grave warnings about public unrest Friday night as soldiers moved in with shoot to kill orders.

Minutes later, in a supreme irony, Cuban President Fidel Castro offered 1,100 Cuban doctors and 26 tonnes of medicine to help the people of New Orleans. Hugo Chavez, whom Pat Robinson would kill, offered our population cheap oil.

Meanwhile, Mayor Ray Nagin finally exploded.

    “I don’t want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don’t do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can’t even count.

    Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.”

And thousands of Louisiana National Guard troops that could have been pre-positioned 48 hours prior to landfall were busy in Iraq protecting America’s right to drive SUVs. Maybe the next time, the Federal government could task the media with delivering the first assistance in a time of disaster. While FEMA and the military weren’t pre-positioned in New Orleans, the media were and they seemed to make out OK.

The nation is shamed. Whether the PR efforts of the governing class will once again stifle the critical thinking skills of the American people into drawing the necessary conclusions about the real priorities of their leaders remains to be seen. One can only hope.

What conclusions should the American people draw from this? That the sustained assault on the public commons by American cultural conservatives has had the intended effect — emaciated public service agencies, benign neglect of the nation’s infrastructure, and a cavalier disregard for poor, minority and urban populations who tend to vote Democrat.

Meanwhile in another nearby country where the public commons gets more respect, Prime Minister Paul Martin offered four ships with emergency supplies and disaster specialists and said Canada would pump an extra 91,000 barrels per day of extra crude oil to the United States to help overcome fuel shortages.

According to Reuters, late Friday, Ottawa said a Canadian air force transport plane would take 27 Red Cross workers on Saturday to Houston, from where they would make their way to the disaster zone.

It’s heartening for this American to know that they Canadian people and government don’t hold the American people responsible for the abuse and indignities heaped upon them by Washington. This American appreciates the basic decency and generosity of the Canadian people.

Keith Gottschalk

Keith Gottschalk

U.S. Keith Gottschalk has written for daily newspapers in Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. He also had a recent stint as a radio talk show host in Illinois. As a result of living in the high ground...