Hooray for the president, protector of wide-screen TVs!

Campaigning journalists tend to play up the fact that there were poor residents left to die in the Big Easy. But this tells us more about the breakdown of traditional family values, than the Bush administration. No surprise there. Bush, after all, would have been crucified had he even thought about forcibly removing African Americans.

To be sure, my heart goes out to the innocents left behind. But do most of the stayers belong to the “wouldn’t leave” or “couldn’t leave” category? That is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, there are stories emerging of thoughtful people walking out of the city or hitchhiking before the calaminity. And then there are the idiots.

In the end, facts matter. So rather than patronise poor people, it might pay to highlight the different choices citizens were making. The looters, of course, remain the real culprits of this unfolding melodrama. They are the Philistines. The Press are the bitter Pharisees. For now, we are stuck with both of them.

If you can smash shop windows, rape women, take five-finger discounts from liquor stores and carry a wide-screen TV on your shoulders, you are in great shape. With that amount of energy, I’d assume one could power-walk out of New Orleans. Forget buses! Forget cars! The wide-screen TV plunderers are imbeciles. Bush’s “shoot-to-kill” mantra is a welcome development. “Hooray for the president, protector of wide-screen TVs!” I hear the citizens shout.

Tellingly, America’s ABC News - no friend of Bush - conducted a poll ignored by our zany journalists. The result? Fifty-five per cent of Americans feel Bush shouldn’t be blamed for his response. Put another way, the general public is less inclined to make harsh judgments. Imagine that! What these polls also reveal is that people are waking up.