Inactive: Thomas C. Reeves
Partisan Tantrums
New Orleans is about to reopen. President Bush has pledged to rebuild the city. Congress has appropriated more than $62 billion for the entire region struck by Hurricane Katrina. The death toll in the five Gulf Coast states, as of mid-September, is only a small fraction of the number initially predicted. In short, the crisis is nearly over, and reconstruction is underway. The rapid recovery is a tribute to the energy and generosity of governments at all levels, the military, corporations, and millions of private citizens. The collapsed levees did not mark the end of civilization. But the media continues to prattle on about doom and disaster, and partisan politics remain as tense as ever. The bitter, at times hysterical anti-Bush explosion that greeted the tragedy in New Orleans (described and analyzed brilliantly by Jay Nordlinger in “All the Uglier: What Katrina whipped up,” National Review, September 26) continues unabated.
A case in point is the effort to conduct a much-needed investigation into the inability of government forces to cope effectively with the first stages of the crisis. Republicans in both the House and Senate have taken steps to create panels to find out what went wrong. Democrats will have nothing to do with these efforts, charging that their GOP colleagues are incapable of conducting a responsible probe. Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts declared, “After the flood comes the whitewash. The job of this Congress is not to run interference for the Bush administration.” Democrats know, of course, that both the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and the Democratic Governor of Louisiana bear strong responsibility in this matter. Facts emerging from a careful investigation might well detract from their continuing attacks on the president.
Moreover, this unwillingness to participate in an investigation is part of the general plan by Democrats of disrupting the nation’s business as often as possible during the Bush years. Obstructionism seems to be the only thing Democrats have to offer. Their alternatives to current policies, when presented at all, are often delivered in generalities. What would John Kerry do in Iraq? Run the war “more effectively.” Underlying Democratic tantrums, of course, is the fear created by the two vacancies on the Supreme Court. Threats to abortion on demand, the ultimate leftist sacrament, keep the opposition party and the dominant media surly and emotional.
Another case in point involves the treatment of New Orleans citizens who have been evacuated to other areas. To insure everyone’s safety, police in several host states have run criminal background checks on the new arrivals before permitting them to enter shelters. In Aurora, Colorado, police found that 50 of the more than 800 people displaced by the hurricane had felony convictions. The ACLU has raised objections to the background checks.
In Milwaukee, a spokesman for the County Executive’s office spoke to reporters of a check of 200 evacuees, 85% of whom were black. “It was a very cursory check designed to identify anybody with an outstanding felony warrant. We were also looking for people on the sex offender rolls, not that they’d be turned away, but it’s common sense: You don’t want to house someone with that type of offense in a dorm full of kids.” Yes, common sense. But the local president of the NAACP saw the probes as unwarranted exercises in racism. “If a city would open its arms to me and as soon as I got there I had to have a background check, I would stay in the water.” Each evacuee was detained no more than 20 minutes and asked only his or her name and date of birth. This was not exactly a return to slavery.
There must be ways to overcome the partisan tantrums that continue to mar our daily lives. Howard Dean, Dianne Feinstein, Jesse Jackson, and Frank Rich are hardly going to make the first move, and neither is Rush Limbaugh. Perhaps when John Roberts is confirmed his first duty will be to use his considerable powers of persuasion to bring Democrats and Republicans together, at least in a small way, for the good of the nation. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court has some weight, after all. Perhaps Bill Clinton, who was on hand in New Orleans during the first difficult days, can also take steps in that direction. (Of course, his ambitious wife may prevent any substantial gesture.) Our prosperity and peace of mind demand at least a minor decrease in childish, partisan rancor.
- Criticism equals obstructionism? by Richard Fell (September 17, 2005 at 4:42 AM)
- The Bush-Way method to overcome partisan haggling by James Spence (September 17, 2005 at 10:09 AM)
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