As vivid images of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina have gone around the globe, there has been a lot of blame, from people in every nation, including our own, heaped upon President Bush. He is blamed for the poor rescue efforts and the utter lack of co-ordination readily visible in New Orleans. The fact that the Left has such a fondness for blaming anything that goes wrong on Bush is ridiculous under normal circumstances, but under these it is downright despicable.

In a recent one-week span in Washington, you had everyone from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Al Sharpton attacking and bashing the president. Sen. Landrieu even had the audacity to threaten to punch the president while she spoke on the floor of the United States Senate. Such hateful and disgustingly partisan remarks are completely out of place. Rather than cause hatred, rather than instigate anger, rather than pass blame, we should pull together and move forward.

Still, some continue in their unremitting attacks on our president when the blame lies elsewhere. In a natural disaster such as this, it has always been the responsibility of the local government first, the state government second, and the federal government third to respond to these occurrences. At the state and local government is where the dereliction of duty and the gross misjudgments lie.

Cathleen Blanco, the Democratic governor of Louisiana, did not do her job. She didn’t have any plan at all, much less a worst-case scenario plan, and a worst-case scenario is what they got.

Then as the doleful stories and depressing pictures continue to circulate, the charge of racism has been made. This shows an absolute lack of understanding concerning the situation. The Democratic Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is black. The entire political hierarchy of New Orleans is black. The buck stops there. Instead of doing his job and having a plan for evacuating the city, he has gone about like a buffoon cursing the federal government, Bush and pretty much anyone else whose job is not to be the first responder to the disaster. Rather than help in the process, he has only made it more difficult.

Yet, perhaps I am in the wrong for refuting the charge of racism. Perhaps racism indeed played a factor. Perhaps Mr. Nagin was filled with racism and a hatred of all things black when he took 400 rich, white tourists that were staying in the ritzy hotel across the street from his office and put them in busses. These busses then drove past countless African-Americans that were wandering around in that city, instead of being evacuated. These busses drove to the Superdome where countless thousands of Mr. Nagin’s poor, African-American constituents were being kept in disgusting and repulsive conditions. However, instead of depositing them, he takes and bumps them up, in front of everyone else, and they leave for safety after staying 15 minutes in the Superdome! If Mr. Nagin was white, that would surely have been labeled racist, and everyone would have called for his head. Since he is black, it is overlooked, and not reported in the media.

The interesting thing about this whole situation is the fact that President Bush could have stepped in and taken charge of the situation. The night before the hurricane made landfall, the president had on his desk a document that, when singed, would give him complete authority in the state of Louisiana. However, he decided not to. Our president wanted to respect the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans. He also knew that if he did take over, he would have been viciously attacked in the media and by the Democrats for suggesting that a Democratic female governor and a Democratic African-American mayor couldn’t do the job. However, he should have taken over, because they obviously didn’t have what it took.

Further, it is disgusting that the Democrats would try to use this horrible tragedy for their own political advantage. When the Oklahoma City bombings occurred, Bill Clinton was president. Did the Republicans attack him for his mismanagement, for his lack of foresight, or for his personal response to the attack? No they didn’t. They grieved with all of us as we asked how could such perversion and hatred be found among us; how we could be attacked by one of our own. You didn’t hear the Republicans attack Bill Clinton or the Democrats after the bombings at the Olympics in 1996. Yet, whenever something goes wrong, the Democrats always blame Bush.

Rather than stoop to politicizing this horrible disaster, the Democrats and the liberal press ought to report the facts and promote the unity necessary for the healing of our nation.

(Brian Sears is a fifteen year-old ninth grader at Tuscola High School. He can be reached at bcsears@praize.com.)