You have quoted pretty much the same article and same sources that have made the rounds, including Blumenthal and others.

I apologize for bringing leftover shrapnel to this board, which has been more reasonable than most, but you have to see the sheer virulence out there to believe it. If Bush had dropped a fusion bomb on New Orleans from a B-2, he would be getting less crap than he's getting now.

I started out this morning scouring sources of information on what's going on, where the help was coming from, the status of the rescue missions, and tracking sources closer to the bone than CNN. There aren't many. This site has pretty rapid news turnaround.

Then I started seeing the attacks begin, and some of them were so damn unfair I had to respond. The rest of the morning was highly educational. The Left is in full attack mode, and it isn't going to let up. Some of it is leaking into the mainstream media.

A few small items in passing:

- Clinton spent most of his administration cutting Corps of Engineers requests as well. In fact, I suspect most administrations did. For all the good work they have undoubtedly done, the Corps has been infamous as a massive pork repository for many, many years, and the first target of many budget-trimming programs.

- To the best of my knowledge, given the list of Corps of Engineers projects, and the locations of the damage, none of the projects the Corps was working on, with the possible exception of a canal upgrade due for completion in 2010, had anything to do with the damaged areas.

I have been amazed at how suddenly the Corps of Engineers became the "thin line of heroes." Two weeks ago, mentioning the Corps to almost any leftist would have gotten you a tirade on pork-stuffed bulldozer pilots who make a career of ravaging our environment.

- There is no shortage of National Guard troops or equipment. Those deploying them have all the personnel they are asking for. The equipment that's in Iraq is not the equipment they use for relief purposes.

- Considering all the crap I get for "alternative universes," an astounding number of people seem to think that if Democrats were in charge, the Navy would have already steaming toward New Orleans when the hurricane was still in Florida, and the National Guard would have been on the beach waiting. In point of fact, Katrina did not hit Category 4 until late Saturday or early Sunday, and the first Naval relief ships began moving toward Louisiana on Tuesday.

There is much more. I'm too damn tired to go over it all again.

Corps of Engineers efforts to repair the city can be tracked here.

Military relief efforts are coordinated by the Northern Command, and can be tracked here.

Oil well status is tracked day-by-day here. Evacuated platforms and facilities are being remanned and brought up when safety inspections are completed.

Or, you can watch people get microphones stuck in their faces by CNN in New Orleans, and assume that's the whole picture. I remember the 1989 earthquake here, and how the news went back then, too. My poor parents thought we were all dead.