Smartest thing I've ever read at FARK

The politics in the comment threads at FARK.com can often times be, well, dumb. Right now there is a flame war going on in this thread because, *gasp*, Pennsylvania proved competent in getting the National Guard to provide aid to motorists stranded by the most recent ice/snowstorm in comparison to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. I usually avoid reading comment threads in submissions like that one because, while occasionally amusing, they are a waste of time. But I perused this one, and read one of the smartest comments I've read over there:

Well, Blanco didn't ask for the national guard until it was much, much too late. I for one prefer having local government decide when the military moves into an American city. Unless anyone in this thread wants Bush to have the legal authority to "cross the Rubicon" shut the fark up. The last thing we need is Bush and ilk (or any president) to have the authority to mobilize the national guard domestically without proper authority. Blanco and Nagin are far worse than Bush on that issue, and that says more than anything else I could type would.

/The less power a president/any president has in regard to local issues the better.

The commenter has this dead on, but way too many people don't understand the dynamics of local, state, and the federal government today. You can call it a failure of the educational system or call it the elevation of the Feds to near godly status, and either way I'll probably agree with you. New Orleans and Katrina was a catastrophic failure of the local and state governments to do their jobs, and a prime but sad example of what happens when you expect the Federal government to do the jobs of the more local governments.