Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: While I have no idea when things will return to a semblance of normalcy, I do know that, as always when disaster strikes, the heart in humanity shines. Private relief organizations, such as the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and Catholic Charities are already on the ground in the hardest-hit areas doing all they can do to bring the type of relief that no government can fully provide Even apart from trying to avoid accountability and deflect criticism, there is something much deeper behind the conservative talking point "don't play the blame game" (which, of course, they have no problem playing when it comes to criticism of local officials). The idea that no one should be blamed for the poor governmental response strikes at the very heart of the conservative philosophy. The conservative view on disasters like Katrina is that no government, not just the Bush administration, could have done any better when it comes to helping those affected. In their view, stuff like this just happens, and it is up to the individuals affected by them to sort it out for themselves. Ultimately, no matter what happens to the victims, no one is to blame, and thus playing the "blame game" is inherently pointless (except as a means to score political points).

Of course, even those people who are conservatives have a latent progressive worldview in their minds, which means that they are open to the possibility of being offended by a meager and incompetent governmental response when their fellow citizens are suffering so greatly. The Pew report Jerome talks about below shows that this is in fact happening for a significant number of conservatives (see page four of this link--PDF). Katrina and the relief failure is causing a crisis in worldview for many conservatives, as they are now growing convinced that a massive public response, rather than just a private response, is needed in the wake of this disaster. Ultimately, it is this line of attack that Democrats need to adopt, for it was the failure of the conservative worldview, a belief that the only common good is the sum of individual goods, that led to poor preparation before the disaster, and a general failure of governmental relief efforts after the disaster. This includes "playing the blame game," because progressives believe that the government is obligated to serve the public good through effective preparations for and responses to situations like this. When there are ineffective responses, the cause must be discovered and rooted out. Unless we can place blame, we cannot hope to avoid future prepaation and response failures.

On this subject, I recently received the following email from George Lakoff:

The moral of Katrina is mostly being missed. It is not just a failure of execution (William Kristol), or that bad things just happen (Laura Bush). It was not just indifference by the President, or a lack of accountability, or a failure of federal state communication, or corrupt appointments in FEMA, or the cutting of budgets for fixing levees, or the inexcusable absence of the National Guard off in Iraq. It was all of these and more, but they are the effects, not the cause.

The cause was political through and through -- a matter of values and principles. The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them.

The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government.

The right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Their main value is Rely on individual discipline and initiative. The central principle: Government has no useful role. The only common good is the sum of individual goods.

It's the difference between We're-all-in-this-together and You're-on-your-own-buddy.

It's the difference between Every citizen is entitled to protection and You're only entitled to what you can afford.

It's the difference between connection and separation.

It is this difference in moral and political philosophy that lies behind the tragedy The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government.

The right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Their main value is Rely on individual discipline and initiative. The central principle: Government has no useful role. The only common good is the sum of individual goods.

It's the difference between We're-all-in-this-together and You're-on-your-own-buddy.

It's the difference between Every citizen is entitled to protection and You're only entitled to what you can afford.

It's the difference between connection and separation.

It is this difference in moral and political philosophy that lies behind the tragedy of Katrina.

• A lack of empathy and responsibility accounts for Bush's indifference and the government's delay in response, as well as the failure to plan for the security of the most vulnerable: the poor, the infirm, the aged, the children .
• Eliminating as much as possible of the role of government accounts for the demotion of FEMA from cabinet rank, for Michael Brown's view that FEMA was a federal entitlement program to be cut, for the budget cuts in levee repair, for placing more responsibility on state and local government than they could handle, for the failure to fully employ the military, and for the lax regulation of toxic waste dumps contributing to a "toxic stew."

This was not just incompetence (though there was plenty of it), not just a natural disaster (though nature played its part), not just Bush (though he is accountable). This is a failure of moral and political philosophy -- a deadly failure. That is the deep truth behind this human tragedy humanly caused.

It is a truth that needs to be told starting now - over and over. There can be no delay. The Bush administration is busy framing it in it's own way: bad things just happen, it's no one's fault; the federal government did the best it could -- the problem was at the state and local level; we'll rebuild and everything will be okay; the people being shipped out will have better lives elsewhere, and jobs in WalMart! Unless the real truth is told starting now, the American people will accept it for lack of an alternative.

I agree, and it seems that some Democrats are starting to get it: Mr. McClellan did not respond to e-mails seeking a response to the Democratic criticisms. But in a sign of the White House effort to move the dispute out of the Oval Office and try to cast the argument in partisan terms, the Republican National Committee chairman, Ken Mehlman, issued a statement assailing Democrats like Ms. Pelosi for "pointing fingers in a shameless effort to tear us apart."

Mrs. Clinton, in back-to-back television interviews Wednesday morning, angrily dismissed those kinds of attacks as a diversion from legitimate attempts by critics to point up shortcomings.

"That's what they always do; I've been living with that kind of rhetoric for the last four and a half years," Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, said on the "Today" show. "It's time to end it. It's time to actually show this government can be competent."

Well said, Senator. Pelosi and Edwards are also doing well: Oblivious. In denial. Dangerous," Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the House minority leader, said of President Bush as she stood in front of a battery of uniformed police officers and firefighters in a Capitol Hill ceremony that had originally been scheduled to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Americans should now harbor no illusions about the government's ability to respond effectively to disasters," she said. "Our vulnerabilities were laid bare."

Former Senator John Edwards, a likely candidate for president in 2008 and the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nominee in 2004, argued that the breakdown in New Orleans illustrated the central theme of his national campaigns: the nation has been severed into two Americas.

"The truth is the people who suffer the most from Katrina are the very people who suffer the most every day," Mr. Edwards said in a speech in North Carolina on Wednesday, according to a transcript provided by his office.

Play the blame game, even if it turns out some Democrats are to blame as well. Thrown anyone who fucked up under the bus. It is for the common good.