A Small Inconsistency

Dr. X posts this from Trent Lott's porch:

"The Washington Post has an article about the do-it-yourself recovery underway in the wake of the execrable Federal response to Hurricane Katrina. It is by turns heartening ("the waves of volunteers typically come down for a week or two, work during the day and at night sleep on cots and bunks set up in places such as the old school library and huts on the community's football field")...

"...maddening ("the two-by-fours inside the walls of George and Margaret Ladner's new home are inscribed with biblical verses, each written by one of the Alabama schoolchildren who raised money to buy the lumber")...

"...and infuriating ("the reason for the charity's dominant role in the rebuilding is that little, if any, of the $3.2 billion in federal aid for Mississippi homeowners has reached anyone here").

"Perhaps this vindicates the arguments some conservatives have made that handouts make people weaker, that significant direct aid to distressed populations is a recipe for profiteering and undermines genuine progress. Perhaps this proves that the best thing to do is to trust people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps and figure it out for themselves. Perhaps the conservatives have been right about this all along.

"Now maybe we should try it in Iraq."