Haiti Vs New Orleans

by Linda Morgan

Hey Glenn:

London Times: Haiti earthquake: a few more rescues, but aid still slow.“Nobody can go anywhere without security in the city. No aid workers can go anywhere without taking risks with security. That adds to the difficulty of delivering the aid because you not only have to have transport – which is rare – you also have to have some sort of security with you, or you are taking a risk. People are getting angry, people are getting hungry and thirsty.” This is sounding kind of familiar.

As I mentioned before, disaster relief isn’t like ordering a pizza. It’s hard to get aid into a place where the infrastructure has been wrecked and ordinary social order broken down. I’m seeing some people start to go after Obama on this in an obvious echo of the Katrina-based criticism of Bush. I understand the appeal of payback, but I don’t see any evidence that Obama has blown it here; this stuff is just hard. Of course, the press won’t go after him the way they went after Bush, but that’s a given.

Thing is, that’s exactly the point. I said to David in [...]