Why the Superdome has 20-30K people in it...

difficult as it may be for the msm, george and the pontificating pundits to understand, not all of us can just jump in a car and hightail it out of town at the drop of a hat... it becomes particularly difficult when you don't HAVE a car and even more difficult when you don't have ANY MONEY...

Evacuating for even two days, for people who lacked a car and friends to stay with, probably would have cost between $350 and $600, assuming there were buses or trains to be had leaving the city for points north. The poor and working poor live paycheck to paycheck and simply don't have that kind of cash lying around. But the car issue was probably the most significant one, given the availability of free shelters outside the city.

A TPMCafe reader report makes a similar case, writing: "No one talks, by the way, about how the lack of public transportation was a large factor in determining who stayed in or around the region."

The New York Times is also clear on what's at stake and who will have to intervene, writing in an editorial today: "People who think of that graceful city and the rest of the Mississippi Delta as tourist destinations must have been reminded, watching the rescue operations, that the real residents of this area are in the main poor and black. The only resources most of them will have to fall back on will need to come from the federal government."

Meanwhile, FOX News last night had a fellow named Jack Chambliss on arguing that the Constitution doesn't provide for disaster relief efforts, and that private individuals should bear the burden:

[T]he founding fathers never intended, Article One, section Eight of the Constitution, never intended to provide one dollar of taxpayer dollars to pay for any disaster or anything that we might call charity. What we now have is the law of unintended consequences taking place, where FEMA has come into New Orleans, a place where, ecologically, it makes no sense to have levees keeping the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans, like it naturally should.

It's hard to imagine how someone can be that bereft of fellow-feeling or sympathy for his countrymen. But leave it to FOX News to ask "Should Taxpayer Dollars Rebuild New Orleans?" while the rest of the nation is transfixed by the near-total loss of one of America's major cities.

un-friggin' believeable... how terribly inconvenient of them to be taking up precious resources by needing to be rescued or, worse yet, DYING right there in front of god and everybody... how terribly rude... and a waste of good money at that...

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