This is my first attempt at a diary, so forgive me if it's not deemed worthy of a diary, but as a New Yorker who lived through 9/11 (and who works just a few blocks from ground zero), i've noticed some interesting and troubling differences between the response to 9/11 and the response to NOLA.
More below the fold
i've noticed that the feds have already gone into CYA mode by saying that they're ready to do whatever's needed, BUT THAT THE AFFECTED STATES AND LOCALITIES HAVE TO FIRST REQUEST THEIR HELP. If you read between the lines, i believe they are covering their asses so that if they are accused of being slow to respond, they can say that they were waiting to be contacted by the local govts. as a government bureaucrat, i quickly recognized the CYA mode of the feds' language (including Bush, who said this at his 5 pm press conference).
Secondly and more importantly, when 9/11 happened, NYC had a republican governor and a republican mayor -- who were all too happy to be lapdogs to their republican president and lavish him with praise about the response to events (and get themselves in good with The Party). However, I belive that the LA governmor and NO Mayor are dems, so i'm guessing they're not going to be as quick to praise bushco as pataki and company have been, and might even be critical. They are defiinitely not in bed together so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
And of course, because bush loves his photo-ops and giuliani had upstaged him with his heroics (I hate to call him a hero because he is despicable, but to make this point i have to), bush had to come to ground zero ASAP to get his dramatic photo-op. In addition, national luminaries were coming in daily before the week was out to get their photo-ops at ground zero, which was still very unsafe and a very raw scene. It became a sick way of being recognized as an A-lister to get a personal tour of ground zero. No one seems to be in a rush to get any type of publicity around NO. Why? I believe it is because on 9/11 the most visible victims were middle to upper middle class whites, including the firefighters -- who were also predominantly white. In NO, the most visible victims are poor black people.
I find these differences striking.
Attack me if you'd like, these are just my observations (and quickly thrown together, so excuse the lack of eloquence in trying to describe my impressions).