New Orleans won and lost

Andrew Jackson became a national hero by defeating the British invasion of New Orleans in 1815.  The saving of New Orleans became an important turning point for the young country, as well.  Robert Remini wrote in Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire (1977):

The nation's faith and confidence in itself had been restored by General Andrew Jackson.  He alone was responsibile for giving the country back its self-respect.  He had "slaughtered" a magnificient British army - over 2,000 victims, a figure that seemed incredible at that time - and repelled the greatest armada in history.

The American people, their self-confidence restored, abondoned the need to prove their right to independence.  Secure in the knowledge that their freedom had been permanently won, they turned to the important tasks of building a nation.  Indeed "from that time on the Union had less of the character of a temporary experiment," something that might disappear in a stroke.  "The country had also won respect abroad, and was recognized in the family of nations as it had not been before."

In the public mind, all of this was associated with Andrew Jackson - not simply because of the magnitude of his victory over the British (although that was certainly important) but because the announcement of his colossal feat immediately preceded the announcement of the conclusion of the war. ... The result was the feeling that Andrew Jackson had come like some special messenger of the Almighty to rescue His people and preserve their freedom.  Small wonder that Jackson's place in the pride and affection of the American people lasted until his death - and beyond.  Small wonder that his popularity exceeded that of Washington, Jefferson or Franklin.

It remains to be seen whether the loss of New Orleans will prove to be a turning point for the United States in such critical areas of emergency preparedness, renewable energy sources and global warming.  But it seems likely that Dear Leader Bush's image will also be forever linked with his performance when New Orleans was in imminent danger.

Karl Rove has tried since 9/11 to stage Dear Leader as that kind of hero.  But Dear Leader didn't look so terribly heroic as he presided over the loss of New Orleans.  Proving once again how foolish it is when pundits find imaginary comparisons between Dubya and Old Hickory.

Josh Marshall observes in a post of 09/04/05:

It's almost awe-inspiring to see the level of energy and coordination the Bush White House can bring to bear in a genuine crisis. Not hurricane Katrina, of course, but the political crisis they now find rising around them.

As we noted yesterday, the storyline and the outlines of the attack are now clear: pin the blame for the debacle on state and local authorities.

Billmon also has an excellent post of the politics of Dear Leader's heroic response to the Katrina disaster: The Potemkin President Whiskey Bar blog 09/04/05.  I particularly like his response to attempts by the Christian Republican White People's Party to use racism to divert criticism from Dear Leader:

For those who can't stand the reality, but are too intelligent to believe a complete fantasy, there's always the age-old resort to scapegoats. For the GOP quasi-fascists, this means the looters (the black ones anyway). As if looting were the exclusive domain of low-income African Americans, rather than the inevitable result when civic order collapses as completely as it did in New Orleans last week.

Some of our neo-Confederates in Right Blogostan should read up on the fall of Richmond in 1865, when hordes of lilly white men and woman rampaged through the burning streets, drunk as lords (and ladies) on stolen whiskey. Or Chicago after the great fire, or Johnstown PA after the flood. Or, for that matter, what frequently happens in nice white-bread college towns whenever the local team loses (or wins) a football game.

For the GOP chattering classes, raw racism is still taboo, although we're already hearing muttered comments about gangster rap, the culture of dependency and The Bell Curve - as if the hurricane (and the governmental paralysis that followed it) were a product of bad genetics and Def Jam Records.

But when the airwaves are filled with footage of black corpses floating face down in flooded streets, there's only so much mileage to be gained from blaming the victims - whether its in the earthy vocabulary of the Old South or dressed up as modern pseudoscience.

John Scalzi at his non-AOL blog Whatever has been looking at the shortcomings of the federal response and the performance of the mainstream press over Katrina.  In this post of 09/04/05, he gives a succinct statement of the urgent need for the press to do its job as a watchdog:

I like that the press is beginning to remember that its role is not merely to reprint the mouthings of people in power. An adversarial press is exactly what we need now -- and what we need, in fact, all the time.