Louisiana Governor Blanco

There is plenty of blame to go around for the aftermath of Katrina in Louisiana. From local government to state government to the Federal government, mistakes were made. My gut feeling is that LA Governor Blanco is the hinge point that is (deservedly) going to receive a lot of the blame when historians have the chance to sort this all out down the road. Mayor Nagin and his city government made mistakes and cracked, but they cracked in part because the next level of leadership, the state government, failed miserably. In every interview I saw of Blanco last week, she seemed ill informed and her leadership seemed non-existant. The standard for local and state leadership during a disaster was set by New York after 9-11. Pataki and Giuliani led their people and did what needed to be done quickly. Since the immediate reaction to disaster is led on local and state levels, Louisiana needed to to provide leadership to the situation. It did not. History will compare Mississippi and Louisiana and find Louisiana badly lacking in leadership. And I really wish I could sit and make this post with out it being a stark comparison of Republican and Democratic leadership, but it is what it is. If it is any consolation to my Democratic readers, I think Louisiana is such a mess that it wouldn't have mattered if it were Democrats or Republicans in leadership positions in that state. Either way, we'd still have the same problems.