On the Eve of Katrina’s Anniversary

Harry Shearer’s keynote address at the Rising Tide bloggers conference Saturday was a sobering one. “We’ve lost the media war,” he said, speaking of New Orleans and the way Katrina’s story has been told. Rather than being a story of the federally neglected protection mechanisms – the floodwalls and the disappearing wetlands – and how their failure in the face of Katrina caused 80 percent of the city to flood, the media has told it as the story of poor people who suffered catastrophically after a freak natural disaster. That narrative has sapped much of the political and countrywide will to do what’s necessary to make sure that New Orleans isn’t similarly flooded again.

By now, most of us who hoped Barack Obama would be more of a leader in the recovery effort than his predecessor have become skeptical. Shearer told a story that further gives us reason to believe that now as then, we’re on our own.