That's what I keep hearing people say. Or the classic - "We need to unite and put aside politics." I don't buy any of it.
We learned a valuable lesson on 9/11 - simply sitting back and avoiding dissent leads to crappy policy. The Patriot Act, the Iraq War, etc. were all made possible by the fact that very few Congressmen and Congresswomen questioned the White House. Despite the lack of dissent, 9/11 HAS been politicized - by the GOP. So remember that when people tell you not to make Katrina a political issue.
Why else should we politicize Katrina? In order to save lives in the future. Placing blame on our leaders is not unpatriotic or divisive - it allows us to realize what mistakes were made and how to avoid them in the future. (Please continue to read below fold.)
The conservative policy of cutting back domestic spending should be scrutinized by the media in the aftermath of the hurricane. As you all know, Bush's budgets have cut back on spending for the Army Corps of Engineers and the NO levee project.
Our armies are spread thin across the globe, which is a big part of the reason that the LA National Guard could not sufficiently respond to the disaster. It appears that the GOP has trouble learning from history. From a strategic standpoint, the greatest superpowers of the past were defeated due to the overextention of their armed forces and supplies. Think about Rome. Think about France under Napolean. Are we either of those countries? No. But we should learn a lesson from their downfalls and apply it to our own military strategy. We should not have troops in Iraq. Aside from all the other reasons why the Iraq War is wrong, it has severely hurt our capability to deal with problems that arise on the domestic front.
The federal government got caught with its pants down when Katrina hit. That HAS to be criticized. We have to make it a political issue, because if we don't we will be faced with the same problems next time a national tragedy occurs.