We know one thing; Katrina will live in the American psyche and history books for as long as there is an America. As we ponder a city under water and being evacuated of its inhabitants, it is clear there is a huge effort in front of us. And we are being measured. A single person adding some assistance can do some real good, like the rescuers and relief workers now doing all they can to save what lives remain. They are our heroes of the day. The internet did a lot of good from far away. Look at Michelle Malkin’s reporting, Glenn Reynolds’ massive listing of charity organizations, and Bill Hennessey’s efforts to help find homes for the millions who must be displaced right now. This all showed the positive power the internet can unleash – the spontaneous and natural coordination of hearts and minds who come together to tackle a challenge.

But one person can also do a lot of damage. Damage to America by adding anger and distrust to a tragedy that should be without both. We have victims and people wanting to help them – we do not need a barrier of anger between the two. Interestingly, the looters in New Orleans are probably the least guilty. They reflect poorly on themselves, and thereby all of us – draining everyone’s will to get through this. Those scrounging for food, drink, medicine and other immediate needs are not looters. That is simple survival.

But those hauling off TVs through waters were bodies are floating must understand they have relegated themselves to the end of the line for those waiting on assistance. But that does not reflect on us as a people too much.

The real harm is coming from the ghouls on the left – for now. Never under estimate the ability of a right wing radical to open their mouth and plumb new depths. But for now the depths being plumbed are by the left.

Bobby Kennedy has a distinct honor here for making the ludicrous claim the Kyoto treaty would have saved us from Katrina, and therefore Governor Haley Barbour has blood on his hands. For those of us who know better, Katrina is not the first Cat 4+ hurricane to hit the US. And the rate and intensity of hurricanes is no more now than early in the 1900’s. Camille, which hit this area in 1969, was a Cat 5.

What made this one worse is not the size of the hurricane as much as the loss of the protective bayous which use to reduce the storm surge New Orleans would experience. Storm surge is what put pressure on the levees. If the bayous of old were in place, they might have dissipated the surge enough to allow the levees to hold. The levees failed because of the pressure on them combined with them becoming saturated. It is combination of rising water and rainfall. So no one knows for sure. But it surely was not Haley Barbour’s fault.

Or George Bush’s fault either. The month long honeymoon between the media (which I will not pick on for a while because of their courage and efforts to report this storm from the belly of the beast), the democrats and Cindy Sheehan has proven to be a disaster for the left. We will not forget who aligned themselves all summer with Sheehan because we cannot forget what Cindy said during this national tragedy.

Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego , so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused.

Being flip and glib about thousands dead should finally drain away any remaining sympathy for this woman. And I blame her enablers and supporters for bringing her to this point where she can spit her venom at this time of national concern.

Of course, there are pathetic examples of what not to do in the media as well. Those in the media who have suffered Katrina’s wrath to report from the ravaged Gulf Coast need to have a talk with folks like this when they come back:

It took a hurricane to end it.

Four weeks and a day after it began on Aug. 2, the great George Bush Crawford Brush-Clearing Campaign of 2005 is finally over. Even with its Katrina-driven finish on Wednesday, two days ahead of schedule, this ranks right up there as one of the epic summer vacations of the modern political era. No president since Ronald Reagan, as sober commentators and gleeful comics spent August busily pointing out, has taken such long respites from the White House grind.

To be precise it took the nation’s largest ever national disaster to end any tolerance for glib political dribble. I was one of many who emailed the NRO Corner because I was so fed up with all the silly navel gazing about how Bush looked during his announcement about Katrina’s after math last night. We have a major problem effecting a lot of people, and now is not the time for all of this. But while that was irritating, what is emanating from the left is poisonous.

It is posts like this, and this, and this which are as irresponsible as the looting in the streets. Fantasizing political dreams over the deaths and suffering of people is beyond ghoulish. The vultures are out using the dead, injured and homeless to start a civil war when we need solidarity of purpose.

I have no doubt we will pull through this. And when we have everyone safe and able to stand again, we will sit down for a moment’s rest and look back on what was accomplished in the wake of this natural disaster of epoch proportion. And we will decide what kind of America we want to move forward as. Will it be one made up of people who rushed to help any way they could? Or one made up of the sycophants vying to be the most liberal voice on the leftward fringes? We control our image as a country by what we embrace and what we reject.

I think we have a bit of rejecting to do.

John Podhoretz has an excellent article out today mirroring my thoughts – but written much better.