Category: National

We shouldn’t need any more rhetoric about how important evacuations are in times of impending natural disasters. It’s sufficiently self-evident.

But we now know how critical it is to provide for those with no personal transportation. And we acknowledge there will always be those too stubborn to leave.

But we also know this: There are many folks who won’t leave – or having left will prematurely return – because of the threat of looters. It’s a real threat – and a real logistical nightmare as a result.

So try this. In addition to mobilizing the National Guard in a timely fashion, let it be known up front and well in advance that local police as well as the Guard have orders beyond arrest. If necessary, they will shoot to kill. And they won’t have the luxury to reflect long on what constitutes “necessary.” It’s called anarchy prevention and — by extension — property protection. It’s also called sending a message.

To would-be looters and would-be lootees.

There’s a lot not to like about Venezuela’s populist clown President Hugo Chavez, but let’s not include the political one-upsmanship he pulled recently in Massachusetts. That’s when Chavez authorized discounted home heating oil this winter for low-income Massachusetts residents through Citgo Petroleum, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

Make no mistake, this is all about politics, although poor people in the nation’s second-richest state will, indeed, benefit. It’s hardly happenstance that Chavez is working with Democratic Rep. William D. Delahunt and a local nonprofit energy corporation headed by former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy. And it comes at a time when U.S oil companies have been reluctant to do what Citgo did, and Congress continues noncommittal in response to rising oil prices.

And don’t you know that deep down Karl Rove, President’s Bush’s political trickster and guru, is begrudgingly saluting Chavez for pulling off a humanitarian stunt that embarrasses the world’s foremost economic power.

A couple of observations from a recent trip to Boston:

*Speculation keeps revving up that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is positioning himself for a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Ideologically, he’s working hard on his GOP bona fides. He’s increasingly disinclined to compromise on gay marriage; is now gearing up to take on liberal state lawmakers on welfare overhaul; and is intimating that wiretapping mosques as a means of intelligence gathering in the fight against terrorism has merit.

He’s also been accorded positive national media coverage for his willingness to take in thousands of Katrina evacuees.

And Romney recently opened his summer home to several hundred Republicans from New Hampshire. It was a party fund-raiser. As vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Romney was an appropriate host to the Granite State party operatives. They responded with a gift: a copy of “Why New Hampshire?” — a book on the first-in-the-nation primary.

*Here in Hillsborough County – from Plant City to Ybor City – we are blessed with history that we take great pride in preserving. Hence, our numerous designated historic districts.

But history is relative.

Staying in the Colonial Inn, in the heart of Concord, Mass., was fascinating — even if you were not a history buff. The waiter’s presentation included historical tidbits – such as the year the Colonial Inn, the part we were dining in, was built. It was 1716. More than a half century before there was a United States.

History can also be humbling.

Until he passed away last week, 80-year-old William Rehnquist had been in obvious failing health with thyroid cancer. The frail chief justice had vowed nobly to stay on the court until he was no longer able. Given the nature of a lifetime appointment, it was his call — even though he had recently missed five months of work and a tracheotomy made it difficult to understand his voice. He died on the job.

The nomination of John Roberts to replace Rehnquist, the speculation surrounding the successor to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the political dynamics of confirmation hearings will dominate court news for a while. It would be easy for the issue of mandatory retirement to fade from public discussion until, say, 80-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens takes ill.

The issue cannot continue in such an ad hoc fashion. We’ve already had justices who were certifiably senile (Stephen J. Field in the 1890s) and obviously incapacitated (William O. Douglas in the 1970s). It should be an irreconcilable incongruity that we can both revere the institution that is the Supreme Court of the United States and permit occasional compromise of its integrity. There’s a reason that Florida judges are required to step down at age 70. It’s that important.

Some historians and law professors have suggested a mandatory retirement age of 75. Perhaps, but the problem with that – as with any arbitrary number — is that you force out those still at the top of their game. Maybe mandatory mental acuity evaluations – starting at 70 or 75 would have merit. If that seems unbefitting the highest court of the land, well, consider the indecorousness of Justice Douglas dozing through arguments.

It’s one thing for Supreme Court justices to want to choreograph their departure and synchronize their retirement with a given presidential cycle. If they’re healthy, they’re entitled.

But if they’re incapacitated, it can’t be their call. It’s not fair to the law and the country.

Although it was a disaster of unprecedented dimension, Hurricane Katrina still fit the basic paradigm. Lives were lost and saved. Behaviors were heroic and predatory. Responsibilities were shouldered and ducked. Damage was assessed and reconfigured. And fingers were pointed and blame was assigned – feds, state and locals.

It comes with the territory, including catastrophic.

But here’s one that shouldn’t: Making a case that race was a factor amid the chaotic effort to evacuate a city of 500,000. From civil rights leaders and pundits to Kanye West and Howard Dean, the rhetorical question has been raised. Given that the majority of the population of New Orleans is black – most of whom are poor — did racism play a role in how fast help was sent in?

First, there’s a better question. Given that New Orleans is the only major American city below sea level, given its hurricane-vulnerable location, given the endemic poverty and lack of evacuation wherewithal among many of its residents and given the advance warning that always precedes a hurricane, why wasn’t the city better prepared? First responders are always the locals. Why were hundreds of school buses, for example, unused and under water? Why was the city sans plans to evacuate its jails? That much, at least, wasn’t a flawed FEMA’s fault.

The barrier islands have been disappearing for a century, and the levees have been deteriorating for decades. Myriad matrixes and scenarios have long predicted a doomsday eventuality. New Orleans may be the “Crescent City” and the “Big Easy,” but it’s also, tragically, the “Big Dereliction of Duty.”

Nobody knows New Orleans’ residents like their own. Do we hold the black mayor, Ray Nagin, accountable because it’s his watch? Or “his” people? And how culpable are all his buck-passing predecessors?

But here’s one definitive answer. Excluding hardcore holdouts, those who didn’t evacuate were too poor, too transportation challenged, too fearful of the unknown and too isolated — not too black. It’s irresponsible, wrong and counter-productive to suggest otherwise.

Silver linings are where you find them. One from Katrina is the outpouring of private-sector help – from in-kind and hands-on to cash – from around the country. It’s a reminder of what Americans have always done in times of crisis.

Of no less note, however, is that many countries – from Canada, Cuba and Venezuela to China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka — have reached out to the United States with offers of aid. Some of it is nominal; some is substantial. Some has political overtones. None of it is unimportant.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice underscored the significance.

“I hope that will remind Americans that we are all part of the same community,” said Rice.

A concomitant hope would be that the Bush Administration, which has maneuvered the U.S. into a worldwide, unilateralist posture on several fronts, will be similarly reminded.

*As a result of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans will never be the same. Nothing will be Easy again. In aerial shots, Gulfport and Biloxi look like Leipzig and Dresden. And the ramifications – from economic and environmental to public health, marshal law and a national disaster fund — will ripple far beyond Bayou country.

*As for the rest of the Gulf Coast, we’re all still in the cross hairs. Our destiny can not be all dodged bullets all the time. At some point the Big Guava can morph into the Big Funnel Cake. Katrina has tragically reminded us that when you live near – let alone on – the water, and an evacuation order is given: Obey it. Only life is truly priceless.

*Thoughts and prayers for those whose lives have been devastated are fine. Thoughts, prayers and a check or credit card are much finer. Two good expediters of help are the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Contributions can be sent to the American Red Cross (1-800-435-7669), P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013, www.redcross.org and the Salvation Army Headquarters (1-800-725-2769), P.O. Box 269, Alexandria, Va. 22313, www.salvationarmyusa.org.

*Is there life any lower than those looting in the aftermath of Katrina? (And we’re not talking about taking bottled water and diapers; we’re talking TV’s, VCR’s, Rolexes – and guns.) Police have made it clear that arrest and prosecution await those who are caught. Didn’t the punishment used to be a lot more severe than that?

*To local TV media I: Dispense with the clichéd spots of clueless surfer sorts taking advantage of Gulf wave action that has spun off of others’ hurricane-related misfortunes. They’re annoying; they’re trivializing; and they’re on every storm season.

*To local TV media II: Most viewers know the difference between hurricane hype with its ratings-driven Armageddon teases and responsible tracking and community-service forewarning. Don’t think we don’t. There’s a reason why not everyone gets their weather news from a network affiliate.

As gas prices continue heading inexorably up, this much seems likely. At some point, the economic hit will be significant, perhaps seismic.

Also evident is this: We are preparing for such a scenario as if deferring the day of reckoning is a viable strategy. We have, in effect, an ostrich plan, but there is no domestic-energy Manhattan Project in the offing, even though national security is very much at stake.

The recent energy bill’s message was clearly – and unfortunately – one of compromise, not crisis or commitment.

Refineries, as we know, are built as infrequently as nuclear power plants. The Arctic and outer continental shelf can’t buy enough time. China continues to boom on the demand side, and there’s no lack of scary scenarios – from Islamic terrorism and sabotage to Venezuelan nationalism – on the supply side. Mess transit is still the rule, a prescript the Tampa Bay area continues to traffick in.

This is the worst of times for an SUV – unless it’s Some Utopian Vision of priority revision. But we see the Bush Administration propose raising fuel economy standards that don’t apply to passenger cars and don’t cover SUV behemoths, such as the Hummer H2. Gasahol is a Corn Belt ruse. Windmills are for tilting. And on a visceral, consumer level, hybrids – from generic looking to butt ugly — remain a minor market factor.

Manufacturers are still pandering to customers’ emotional tastes and egos rather than assessing society’s needs and priorities. Do Hummers belong in a war zone or a wet zone?

A recent quote by Robert Lutz, who heads product development for General Motors, underscores the problem — without acknowledging there is one. “We’re not in the transportation business,” emphasized Lutz, “we are in the arts and entertainment business.”

But for how much longer?

Those blaming Tony Blair for being George W. Bush’s eloquent caddy on Iraq, should concede this: He’s making the right call in the aftermath of last month’s terrorist bombings – and near bombings – in London. It’s time for the Brits to show more than a stiff upper lip.

“Staying here carries with it a duty,” pointed out Blair in referring to foreign-born Muslim clerics who glorify terror on British soil. “And that “duty,” Blair underscored, includes the requirement “to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life.” Last anyone checked, British values still make no allowances for suicidal mass murder – whether as political grievance, infidel repellant or expedited trip to Paradise.

The ultimate value, lest anyone need reminding, is life itself. Multicultural tenets of tolerance are secondary, if not moot in a time of war. The kumbaya crowd is no deterrent to the enemy within. More like a vulnerable society’s soft, inviting, clueless underbelly.

The usual suspects overreacted and whined about an incipient police state and terrorist-matching intolerance as Blair proposed laws to deport extremist religious leaders and shutter the mosques that mock honest Islam. The government would also ban groups with a track record of supporting terrorism and bar radicals from entering Britain. The blame throwers then warned that such a crack down would further alienate British Muslims.

Needless to say, none of these critics is responsible for public safety, let alone the maintenance of Britain as a land of — dare we reiterate — British values.

In a variation on a theme, Lenin may be doing another turn in his grave. He thought for sure the West would sell its arch enemies the rope to string ourselves up with. Blair won’t go along.

The application for the U.S. is self-evident.

Open societies cannot permit open season on themselves. It means getting deadly serious about our borders, especially the 2,000-mile one with Mexico. It means profiling where common sensically necessary and making port and power grid security more of a priority. It means better intelligence gathering – including prisons — and not backing off the Patriot Act.

And it also means acknowledging an immigration reality. No longer are those who come here mostly “huddled masses yearning to be free.”

Increasingly, those coming here – as opposed to their predecessors – seemingly want what’s best from America – without becoming an “American.” In fact, not necessarily liking or respecting America. Just skimming some economic cream.

And then there are those who want what’s worst for America. At their most benign, they only enable terrorism. They have no yearning curve.

They can’t be tolerated because staying here also “carries with it a duty.”

In inexorable fashion, Iraq now inches its way to within days of parliamentary approval of its new milestone constitution. Only a few details remain outstanding.

Among them: The somewhat dicey question of whether Iraq should be a federal state. Not all clans are comfortable with this concept.

And then there’s the official language issue. Not everyone (read: Kurds) thinks Arabic for everyone is a swell idea. And there’s that neighborhood precedent; Iran nixed Arabic for Farsi.

And then there’s the controversy about the official name. A lot of locals think the country can do better than “Iraq.”

And then there’s this matter of Islam, which is pretty much the underpinning for the holy terrorist war now plaguing the planet. No other religion seems so easily “hijacked”; none so intimately associated with suicidal mass murder. But Islam, to be sure, will have a role. The only question is whether that role will be domineering or just dominant.

Other than these constitutional loose ends — and an insurgency in its death rattle — Iraq seems good to go.