Incredible Comments on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight Program

This evening I heard the most incredible statement or thinking aloud by business journalist Lou Dobbs regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the growing comments about the slow response of federal aid.

Dobbs questioned the lack of criticism by the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, and other predominantly minority organizations on the black leadership and power structure in New Orleans.

He basically wondered why there are no fingers being pointed at the black mayor and other black leaders involved.

Mr. Dobbs, within the past 18 years of respecting your opinions and reporting, I am amazed that you willingly disconnected the dots through your verbalized questions.

There are no corresponding municipal departments (of any popularity and significance) nationwide to FEMA, Homeland Security, and other federal departments for any event that impacted citizens across interstate lines.

If the hurricane affected the residents of any city or state only, then the leader of the affected entity still would have the responsibility of notifying the larger levels of government about their problems and need for assistance.

If a single administration could be held responsible, then responsibility and negligence would have to be attributed as well to the administrations and policies enacted by the state and federal government levels before, during, and after primary responsibility is put upon the shoulders of an administration.

I survived Hurricane Hugo in SC. I remember the warm words spoken about Charleston, SC mayor Joseph Riley back then. But I also remember that he sounded the same trumpet of the need for help and his calling of the federal government on the carpet about the lack of assistance is what many remember him for.

The questions that are needed now are what plans, logic, and rationale justified the delays in responding to the impacted areas, what corrections can be made immediately, and what checks and balances can be put in place to prevent the same from reoccurring.

As an American citizen and person who has typically voted for Democrats, I foolishly might hope that such failures of leadership are confined to Republican administrations if at all. But unfortunately, I know that bureaucracy is a growing club and mindset and has members across any political affiliations.

The posturing of the Mississippi and Louisiana governors and the heads of FEMA and Homeland Security have been sickening.

The solution is to immediately swarm the problems with temporary aid (to equally preserve and rescue life) and balance the long-term assistance with breakthrough solutions to address the critical structural problems that threaten American citizens through natural and man-made disasters.

This disaster and the slow response reflects upon the lack of leadership and political opinions and doctrines based and held upon the concepts of economics and poverty first, geographical location second (the response would have been faster anywhere else than the US southern states--the poverty belt), and race third and finally.

Address American economics and poverty, geographical balance, and race and the vast majority of American problems can be eliminated very quickly.

Fortunately and equally unfortunately for all American citizens, our foreign antagonists have only considered our economic center of gravity for their focus to attack.