Here's a bit of information...

..for critics of the governmental response to hurricane Katrina to chew on.

"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

I did not know that.

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

I didn't know that and I'll bet you didn't either. That's probably because none of the MSM has reported anything like this..they've been too busy cataloging every dot and jittle that paints the whole scene as an unmitigated failure..ya think?

Here's some more that we didn't know.

More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast
Guard helicopters.

The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.

Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees. Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this.

Right, and lest we forget, they were doing their complaining from comfortable hotel rooms in between quick trips out amongst 'em to "feeel their pain".

A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:

"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying
engineering.

"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.

"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.

"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."

"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome. The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads.

The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

Right, that's a question I've asked here and I know that many other bloggers have as well.

And I'd like to add that the disaster in New Orleans may have seemed so much worse due to the behavior of many of the "victims" themselves.

As bodies are recovered (and no where near the ten thousand the MSM promised would be forthcoming BTW) I wonder how many of them will be sporting bullet and stab wounds? When hurricane Andrew wiped Homestead Fla. off the map, how many of you recall seeing images of wholesale looting?

I am at a loss to recall any incidents of disaster victims sniping at first responders there either.

How many area hospitals there were taken under seige by mobs of armed men demanding they hand over their supplies of drugs?

The aftermath of hurricane Katrina is a true catastrophy for the people who were affected, no question. But let's not forget that in addition to being hit by the "perfect storm", New Orleans was well positioned to be the "perfect victim" due in no small part to the continual corruption and incompetance of it's supposed civic leaders.

I suggest we all take a step back and re-assess the whole thing in a more rational way. I think reasonable people will shortly come to understand that there was not much more that could be done by people who were a thousand miles away when the hurricane struck.