Gustav Mauler

Getting ready to leave the convention hall I pass a TV showing a New Orleans levee getting ready to breach. It's another part of the rhetorical challenge of being here in St. Paul: how to write about this ongoing conservative failure in a tasteful and non-exploitative way, even as the disaster unfolds.

Let me do it this way: I'll point you toward some previous posts on Katrina, here, here, here, here, and here.

I wonder, by the way, if conservative columnist Amity Schlaes is still advising a post-hurricane federalist pause. And I wonder what John McCain thinks—someone should ask—about President Bush's signing statement vitiating Congress's instructions that future FEMA chiefs possess "a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management." The signing statement's explanation? It "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

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