Over at Reason‘s site, Matt Welch has an absolutely dead-on, fascinating account of what really happened at the Superdome in NO from the public-information officer on site the entire time. Forget FEMA, state officials, the mayor ? arguably the most egregious performance was by the gullible national news media. The entire Q&A is worth reading, but here?s a particularly uplifting part of the official?s statement to Welch:
But New Orleans, I guess my last point is, I kind of feel upset. Because I have some pictures of a dad reading stories to his kid. I have a picture of a lady who?I don’t know what the hell she was thinking when she brought it?but she brought her clown suit, and make-up, and she’s in full clown garb, and she’s got a wig on, and a nose and everything, and she sat there for days and painted kids’ faces all day long. I have 20 amazing stories of people taking care of each other for every one incident of someone stealing, or someone taking somebody’s stuff, or someone trying to get into somebody else’s business, or someone laying their hands on somebody.