Of, By and For the People

In April 1992 I was living in southern California.

Shortly after the jury (11 whites and 1 Filipino) acquitted four white police officers in the beating case of Rodney King (an African-American), Los Angeles and surrounding areas became a war zone with sustained rioting for three days. Widespread looting and arson destroyed many already deprived areas and certain ethnic communities, such as the Korean and Armenian neighborhoods, were specifically targeted by the largely African-American rioters. Murder and mayhem ruled.

It was a scary time. We were allowed to leave work that first afternoon as the early reports came in and because I lived in Long Beach but worked in the Valley, I had to drive 30 miles to get home amid reports that armed gangs were coming onto the freeway running through Lynwood and Compton. I could see the plumes of black smoke against the skyline as I passed by downtown LA. Once home, I sat in my living room and listened to the sirens and occasional gunfire. I thought about getting out and heading to Vegas to stay with friends but decided instead to hunker down and ride it out. Smart? Maybe not, but it worked out. Order was eventually restored and life was normal again with lots of blame (primarily directed at the LAPD) and finger-pointing as the traditional aftermath of any disaster.

I am not comparing my experience to that of Hurricane Katrina's victims. I had food, water and a roof over my head. But the memory of those early April days in 1992 comes to mind because of all the shrill second-guessing I hear and read about the government's response to this disaster.

If you are on the right politically, you ridicule and criticize the Democratic mayor and governor of Louisiana. If you favor the left, you fault Bush and blame it all on Iraq or global warming or tax cuts.

How about this? No country on the face of the earth is immune from natural disasters and no country's government is omniscient, omnipotent or omnipresent, as much as we might wish that it possessed these divine qualities. Government is made up of human beings, some more talented in the face of crisis than others, but all of them only human. And I sincerely believe that every elected official, of whatever political stripe, generally performs as best as he or she is able in the midst of disaster. Do they always get it right? No. Could they do better? Probably almost always yes, especially if you're someone who's been sitting in the Superdome for five days waiting for a hot meal and a clean toilet (and most of us are not in that situation).

The view from the cheap seats is never quite as good as we like to pretend it is.