Not Their Finest Hour

Now that the initial nonpartisan outrage at the incompetent response to Katrina has given way to paid spin and the "blame the locals" bunch is working overtime, it's time to take a look back at the bits of truth that emerged last week. Some of it was quite enlightening, and at the end I'll explain why I think it is important.

On Monday, August 29, NRO's Jonah Goldberg advises people in New Orleans to "grow gills" (each post header below links back to the original):

ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS
I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared.

Tim Graham then chimes in with a crack about Dan Rather:

EYES ON THE RATHER PRIZE
CNN has lots of anchors out in the storm today, but Anderson Cooper seems the closest to the Rather-wrapped-around-a-pole look.

Later on Monday, Jonah responds to a post by Stephen Bainbridge that criticized him for the "gills" comment. Note Jonah's prediction about what will happen in the Superdome:

KNUCKLE SMACKING
Doc Bainbridge chastises me for my insensitivity and implores my more mature colleagues to take me to task. He even goes so far as to call me Taranto-esque, for what that's worth.

Perhaps Professor Bainbridge -- of whom I am a fan -- thinks something really awful will befall the denizens of the Superdome and therefore making a joke at their expense is wrong. My guess is that it will simply be a really unpleasent time for the remainder of the day, but hardly so unpleasent as to sanctify them with refugee or some other victim status. I assumed the reference to gill-growing and whatnot made it clear where I was coming from. I'm sorry if we don't always fulfill the good professor's expectations around here. But it can't be all brandy-snifters and Latin puns in the Corner.

Jonah then comes right back with another crack about the storm's name:

NOT THAT I WANT TO OFFEND ANYBODY
But it would be pretty cool if Fox played to caricature and repeatedly referred to the hurricane as Katrina vanden Heuvel.

"The destruction from Katrina vanden Heuvel is expected to be massive."

"...the poor and disabled are particularly likely to suffer from the effects of Katrina vanden Heuvel ...."

"Coming up: how to explain Katrina vanden Heuvel to your children."

To his credit, Jonah appears to have been visited by conscience that night (or maybe he just checked his email) and he posted the following on Tuesday morning:

CONDOLENCES
To those who lost lives, loved ones or property in the hurricane yesterday. After sleeping on it, I decided I probably could have waited longer for the levity.

As New Orleans descends into chaos on Tuesday, Jonah makes several weighty posts about his favorite cartoons, including the following:

UNGLAMORAYS
Warren -- I loved those cartoons, even though there was really almost no animation whatsoever. Most of the scenes were just still shots of comic-panels. I can't imagine what a kid watching those today would think. Anyway, other great lyrics from that series:

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose oppose his shield must yield.

If he's lead to a fight and a duel is due,
Then the red and white and the blue'll come through.

When Captain America throws his mighty shield.


And of course:

Tony Stark
Makes you feel

He's a cool exec

With a heart of steel.

As Iron Man,

All jets ablaze,

He fights and smite'n

With repulsor rays!

A blaze of power!

Iron Man!

Amazing armor!

Iron Man!

Again to his credit, and apparently after receiving emails slamming him for his previous comments, Jonah then posts the following later on Tuesday:

KATRINA
Not to drag it out, but this really has turned out to be a far more awful disaster than I ever dreamed it would be. My thoughts and prayers to those affected and my apologies to those offended for my making light of it. It'd be nice if the Huffington Post types could understand that I did not make jokes after the death toll and damage were known, but before -- when the media seemed to be making the usual spectacle of itself. But that's really neither here nor there. Anyway, here's hoping for the best. It's really become no joking matter and, at least in hindsight, it never was. Donations to the Red Cross relief effort can be made here. And, yes, I'll be making a donation.

Rich Lowry doesn't seem to quite "get it" however, and comes to his defense:

SUPERDOME
Personally, I thought the Jonah Superdome riff was funny and clearly was poking fun at the media frenzy around Katrina at a time when it seemed especially over-blown.

Even on Wednesday during the height of the chaos and suffering in New Orleans, Jonah---a graduate of Goucher College, known by many as basically a finishing school for women in suburban Baltimore before it went co-ed in the 1980's---still can't quite help himself and makes an apparent crack about Tulane:

SCHOOL'S OUT
It's just, like, closed at Tulane.

Inexplicably, he then posts the following email without comment (if there was a preceding post to which this one refers, I was unable to find it):

BLACKS & SWIMMING
From a longtime reader:
I just wanted to refute the writer, its a myth that black people generally don't know how to swim, we can swim just fine and everyone one I know who is black (other than elderly or handicapped) know how. Just because there are not a lot of us on the swim or hockey teams across the name doesn't mean we don't how to ice skate or swim. I don't see a lot of us on the tour de france or at motorcross show but we know how to ride bikes and motocycles too. Silliness
[Name withheld]
PS- the looters regardless of color who are stealing for greed as opposed to food and water for necessity, should be shot.

It was all apparently too much for NRO's Mark Levin, who posted the following on Friday:

THE RESPONSE
Frankly, I am embarrassed by some of the nonsense I am reading here. Much of it isn't even thoughtful, just knee-jerk. This is a massive tragedy. An entire city is under water. 100,000 people either didn't or couldn't leave. For the first 100 hours, access was almost impossible. The entire infrastructure was obliterated. The nation is rallying. Every available governmental resource has been or is being mobilized. Individuals, charity groups and corporations are all rallying. Nothing is being spared. The president is doing that which any president, of either party, would or could do. It disappoints me that conservatives in particular, who supposedly understand the limitations of government, are reacting so callously to the unprecedented response in the name of compassion for the suffering. There's nothing compassionate about it. And I dare say that many of those reading it, including those who are volunteering time and money, find is distasteful.

Even John Podhoretz was moved to post the following, the main value of which was the honest and unintentionally-revealing header:

NOBODY'S A BIGGER BUSH CHEERLEADER THAN I...
...but everybody on the Right better wise up and fast. Bush blew this first one big time, and needs to be prodded to improve, not apologized for. Don't defend him just because you know liberals are going to attack, and don't come up with bizarro theories about how he's a man of action not reflection etc. etc. He emoted plenty around 9/11. Look, it's not too much to say that the continued viability of his presidency resides in how he and the administration respond in the next week.

Besides the obvious fact that much of this is profoundly nonserious tripe, I'm not posting it here simply to criticize or play gotcha. Indeed, Jonah and his colleagues were appropriately aghast once the full scale of the disaster became obvious. But these comments collectively are a perfect example of what I've written in the past about the growing division between the professional chattering punditry (and by extension, the upper class) and those who do the working, the fighting, and the dying for this country. For days while the hurricane was bearing down on New Orleans, everyone knew how strong it was. Even before the storm "seemed" to avoid a direct hit on the city, it was obvious there would be death and destruction. It didn't take a brain surgeon (or an urban sociologist) to realize that those who would suffer the most would be people living in low-lying areas and those unable to evacuate---in other words, minorities and the poor. And the response of some to that obvious and unfolding scenario while sitting at keyboards in the comfort of their dry, clean, air-conditioned living rooms? Puerile jokes about Dan Rather, cartoons, and "growing gills."

As we move further away from the initial horror and the spin kicks in again, from here on out let's not forget to evaluate the chattering punditry in the context of the dark fundamental truth that emerged from some of its members last week.