Follow Up: Death of an American City

It was barely a week ago that Kiko’s House reprinted a New York Times editorial arguing that we were about to lose New Orleans, and that shocking state of affairs was in large part because the Bush administration had not followed through on its promises.

So it was cheering to see that the White House has now requested an additional $1.5 billion for hurricane protection, in effect answering the nagging question of whether New Orleans should be rebuilt.

What was not cheering is that President Bush, who was embarrassingly slow to respond to the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina but eventually pledged the put the full weight of his office behind a rebuilding effort that has yet to begin, was nowhere to be seen when the additional $1.5 billion was announced.

New Orleans residents don’t need mixed signals from Washington. They need results.