But besides topographical peril, New Orleans suffers from an ossified Louisianan political culture that has not evolved all that much from the crass demagoguery of Huey Long of the 1930s. The party machine's reason to be is providing exemptions for the very wealthy and subsidies for the dependent poor. We saw the dividends of this old "every man a king" politics in the scapegoating by paralyzed public officials.
The clueless mayor of New Orleans, who initially hesitated over federal requests to evacuate the entire city, was reduced to expletive-filled rants as hundreds of empty public buses sat idle. The teary governor of Louisiana whined mostly about the federal government. Meanwhile Sen. Mary Landrieu railed at the president: "I might likely have to punch him —literally."
This sad trio proved how fortunate New York was to have a Rudy Giuliani on Sept. 11, or Los Angeles a Richard Riordan in time of earthquake.
Although millions of others in nearby ravaged Mississippi rebounded without much violence, many in a densely populated, unassimilated and poor urban African-American population —one largely ignored by whites and manipulated by racial demagogues — chose to stay or were left behind in a submerged New Orleans.
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