I want to point out that it is not only liberals/Democrats who are criticizing the federal government and President Bush along with the state and local government.
I am seeing this criticism from conservative sources as well. Just as an example, here is a story from FOX, which our right-wing friends always call the most fair and balanced of the mainstream news media.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168732,00.html
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"Despite decades of knowing what a Category 4 or 5 hurricane could do to New Orleans, for example, local officials failed to have an adequate evacuation plan in place. The dispossessed were shuffled off to the Superdome with no security, and little food or water. There was no effort at organization, dissemination of information, or order. The state government failed to amass state resources to aid in the evacuation of people with no means to get out. Inexcusably, both state and local officials made the exact same mistakes they made in response to Hurricane Ivan, just a year earlier. And they'd made similar mistakes in 1998, with Hurricane Georges.
The federal government's shortcomings have been widely reported. They include the symbolic: After the storm hit, President Bush strummed a guitar at a fundraiser, invoking comparisons to Nero. He couldn't cut the last few days of his five-week vacation. Vice President Cheney returned from his vacation six days after the storm hit.
They include cronyism: FEMA Director Michael Brown was brought into the organization after having been fired from his previous job directing horse shows. He had no emergency management experience, and seems to have been hired because he was the college buddy of President Bush's pal Joe Allbaugh (who now runs a firm that consults companies on how to win contracts from FEMA and other federal agencies).
And of course they include incompetence: The inexcusable ignorance of FEMA and DHS officials about events that had been in the news for days. And have a look at this chart. It's the power structure of the federal government's emergency response system. Is it any wonder why it took days to get help to people stranded in floodwaters?
Much of that chart was in direct response to Sept. 11. And many of the changes in response to Sept. 11 including moving FEMA under the auspices of DHS exacerbated the government failure last week. If after four years of preparation, this is the DHS response to a disaster that was foreseeable for years, and that it had days to prepare for, one shudders to think how the agency will respond to a surprise terrorist attack.
The Army Corps of Engineers began the task of shoring up Lake Ponchartrain decades ago. Administrations and Congresses controlled by both parties had ample opportunity to ensure the task was completed. They had other priorities. When the federal government took over the responsibility to protect New Orleans, it effectively shut out any private or local efforts that may have emerged to upgrade the levee system."
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I'm pointing this out because much of the rhetoric here is suggesting that daring to criticize Bush, the Administration, and the federal government for the Katrina response makes you a liberal moron or suchlike. Anyone who dares, even a fellow conservative, is castigated.