This week I happened to have 2 houseguests from The Netherlands, which as you well know, takes water very seriously. Their hard-headed,empirical 21st Cent reaction was telling, especially in contrast with the initial soft-touch yet sensational
media presentation:
Watching the the water pour through the broken levees, they said where's the army?
In Holland, the levees would have been patrolled & watched, with the army on
hand to shore up any weak areas immediately. What we watched was a gaping hole
in the levee, water pouring in and no one, absolutely no one there doing anything
about it.
When Bush added a line into his speech from Arizona along the lines of "pray
for New Orleans," they howled, saying what the hell good is that supposed to do?
They were stunned that that would be the response of the leader of the nation.
When the news of the floods first came across the TV, they immediately asked who's
going to lose their job because of this. I explained that our standards of accountability
weren't exactly up to theirs, and if Sept 11 was any indicator those responsible
would be promoted and presented with honors.
Watching Nightline, when Koppel asked not one but three of their reporters a question
along the lines of "we've all seen terrible disasters, but this seems to have
moved beyond, do you feel this way, and why?" they blurted out, what a stupid
question -- they wanted to hear why this happened, who's responsible, and what's
being done. I explained that Koppel was one of our most honored journalists, but
the US media tends to be a bit more impressionistic about stories than theirs and
that the story sometimes becomes about them.
They took offense at the media scenario that this was an inevitable work of nature/God
for a city below sea level, after all most of their country has battled the sea
for centuries, noting that if you blame it on nature/God, no one's responsible.
They've gone home with, I'm sad to say, vastly reduced esteem for our country