The Republicans:Goldwater, Bush, New Orleans and Chernobyl

The Republican Party is no longer a party of possibilities. It was once the party of, in part, fierce individualists, always pulling off the fetters that kept us from doing our best. (Some of these fetters also kept us from dumping toxic waste in the wells that fed "Colored Only" drinking fountains.) Take Barry Goldwater, for example, who even championed the rights of gays because he valued his own freedoms.

Now the Republican Party is the party of restrictions and limits. "With us or against us." "Why do you hate America?" Liberalism is treason. They have gone beyond policy debates, such as racial quotas in college admissions, to opposing government effectiveness in almost any quarter. "Starve the beast." Outsourcing defense. "No-one could have foreseen the breach of the levees."

They are attacking our confidence, and calling it a war on terror. If there are any who doubt this, take notes while watching Fox News one day, and read the notes a few days later. They will seem like programming - not of a television but of a people.

Let's look at this another way. When New Orleans flooded - no, wait, look six days before. When Hurricane Katrina was headed toward New Orleans, we heard about the possible breach of the levees on the news. Duh. It's below sea level. When the storm hit, the city was trying to evacuate people, but FEMA reacted with flat feet. It took days for the first federal help to reach a substantial number of people, and over a week for federal evacuations to help the survivors. And there are still homeless and displaced, and we're about to have another hurricane season.

April 2007 is the 21^st anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and the Soviet government's response is instructive in many ways. First let me say that I am not a fan of the old Soviet Union. I tend not to like governments involved in mass killings and extensive repression. It's just a peculiarity of mine. Next, let me point out that the Soviet regime hid the disaster from the outside world, and from most of the Soviet world as well, for as long as it could. Then, a day and a half after the accident, the evil Soviet empire's buses arrived in Pripyat, the town of 45,000 residents built to house workers at Chernobyl. According to the May 19, 1986 Time magazine, "a 1,100-bus convoy that stretched 13 miles took 2 hrs. 40 min. to evacuate residents to nearby communities."

I'm over Sputnik. I think we showed 'em with the man on the moon stuff. But, to quote Sean Hannity, "what about the buses?" Only, to be fair, what about FEMA's buses? Why did FEMA arrive a week later than the Soviets, evacuate only a small fraction of the affected residents (as opposed to the almost 100% evacuated from Pripyat), and blame everyone else for the mistake?

I doubt any of the Soviet officials bragged they were fashion gods during or after the disaster. Just a hunch.