Katrina Conservatism

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Louisiana's lachrymose governor, wants hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money so that she can "recreate our communities." You know, the community that appalled the rest of America when wall-to-wall television coverage of Katrina showed us just what it looked like: poor, black, with astonishingly high unemployment and welfare dependency rates. Her desire to recreate that community is understandable; it is the community that put her and the gum-chewing, profanity-spouting New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, in power.

President Bush has a grander yet far more sensible vision. Not exactly the construction of a Ronald Reagan-style shining city on a hill, an impossibility since most of New Orleans sits several feet below sea level. But a city that will be built "higher and better."

Following the advice of his other hero, Winston Churchill, Bush sought to recover some of his lost popularity last week by reacquainting Americans with his, and their, natural optimism. "A pessimist," the great Briton said, "sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." And the president has always been at his best when relying on his can-do, Texas-size optimism.

A great article by Irwin M. Stelzer in The Weekly Standard.