Playing the Race Card...

On my way in to work, I was listening to NPR's coverage of Katrina's aftermath, particularly regarding the ongoing search & rescue efforts and the Federal response. I was livid over the accusations of racism and how the media seems to encourage this mindset.

I'm very tired of the blame game being played on Capitol Hill - this is the time when we as a people should put aside our differences, roll up our sleeves, and work together.

During my lunch break, I read several articles today on the race issue - Here are some excerpts:

Bumblers, Not Bigots by Deroy Murdock

. . . . Like New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and FEMA director Michael Brown, President Bush must explain why, for three to four days, no one could manage at least to air drop bottled water and granola bars on thousands of Katrina survivors who baked under temperatures exceeding 90 degrees at the Crescent City’s Superdome, its convention center, and freeway overpasses in the central business district.

While he must answer for that and other badly dropped balls, Bush need not apologize for being fueled by bigotry during last week’s “unacceptable” federal response, as he described it.

This charge crumbles on first inspection. . . .

Wanna Be Starting Something? By Mark Goldblatt

One of the more despicable motifs sounded by left-of-center commentators in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina took the form of a question: If the majority of the victims in New Orleans had been white rather than black, would the federal response have been swifter and more decisive? This isn’t a real question, of course, but a rhetorical question, a cheap attempt to score political points, since the person doing the asking already knows, or thinks he knows, the correct answer: Well, obviously, the federal response would have been more efficient if the majority of the victims had been white . . . because President Bush is a closet racist who doesn’t mind watching black people suffering and dying. . . .