Where was the aid?

Louise raises a needed alarm about the current GOP framing: It's all Nagin's fault.  As I wrote up a comment, I realized that there's a response that skewers that framing once and for all:

Where was the aid?

The problem wasn't that the aid couldn't get to the Superdome. The problem was that the aid didn't exist.

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Providing food, clothing, and shelter for 100,000 people on short notice is no easy task. There is so much that needs to be brought to the displaced.  Even with the Guard available, the resources to distribute supplies are finite.  Send 100,000 people to 10 or 100 different places, and you vastly increase the logistical problems in getting them what they need, when they need it.

Is it really so unreasonable for the Mayor to assume that bringing people to a central location would be the better approach? It should then be a relatively simple matter to bring in the aid that would be needed, with the help of the Federal government. And is it so unreasonable to assume that the Federal government would provide that help?  

Even with the evisceration of FEMA, the National Guard should still have been a vital part of the effort from the get-go -- at least, the 2/3 of the Guard that wasn't in Iraq. (I don't even know if it's fair to say that Nagin was assuming the Federal aid would be there. Perhaps someone in the Federal government agreed with this in advance.)

So the question again: What does it matter if the mayor didn't summon enough buses? The aid simply wasn't there, no matter where he sent the displaced.