Although I take issue with Brian Sears’ guest column in last week’s Smoky Mountain News (“Bush Not To Blame For Katrina Quagmire”), I have to admit that, in an odd way, I was heartened to read that he is a 15-year-old student.

It is exceedingly rare these days that young people take much of an interest in politics at all, and while Mr. Sears’ argument that President Bush is not at fault for the disaster in New Orleans is filled with standard right-wing boilerplate (the liberal press is to blame for creating this impression, big surprise) and the typical strategy of deflecting responsibility by indirection (it was the mayor’s fault! it was the governor’s fault!), it is also thoughtful and articulate and several notches better than we usually get from Mr. Bush’s supporters, whether they are on the payroll, true believers, or those who supported him and now are desperately holding onto any shred they can find in the face of mounting evidence that the man they backed has not only let them down, but is quite possibly the worst president in modern history.

Of course, just how awful Mr. Bush’s presidency has been, that is for history to judge. For one thing, we’ll have to see what is happening in Iraq in 10 years. Or 20. Will there be a thriving democracy? Will we still have troops there, American soldiers still dying every day, as they are now? How long will we commit lives, a huge chunk of our budget, and other resources to a cause that, to many (and not just the liberal press — consult the latest polls), seems increasingly hopeless?

What we do know, even without the benefit of historical perspective, is that the original reasons we were given for going to war — the connection of Iraq and Saddam Hussein specifically to 9-11 and the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — both proved to be false. Even the most artful and ardent Bush apologist cannot argue otherwise. In the meantime, as the costs for the war mount, Mr. Bush has refused to roll back some of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations to help fund the war, resulting in record-setting deficits that Mr. Sears’ generation will inherit. Far be it from this president to ask for even a small sacrifice from his most prized — the rich — when middle-class and lower middle-class citizens are paying the ultimate sacrifice for the war by sending their sons and daughters to die in it.

And now we have New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. First, let us stipulate that responsibility for the tragedy in New Orleans goes from the very bottom to the very top, and that there should be accountability at every step, from the individuals who COULD have evacuated and did not, to the prison, hospital, and rest home managers who COULD have made arrangements to get people out and did not, to the hapless mayor, who failed to execute an evacuation plan already in place, to the governor, who seemed to have no idea what to do. Some of these people were too cavalier, some were too inexperienced, and some were just inept. Mr. Sears, this much is stipulated.

No, Mr. Bush is not to blame for the incompetence at the state and local levels. Nor is he to blame for the weather. Obviously, as is reflected in Mr. Sears’ column, the strategy of the Bush administration has been to focus on the incompetence of state and local officials in evacuating New Orleans before Katrina arrived, as if the whole story starts and stops there, as if incompetence at one level of government excuses incompetence at a higher level.

One might plausibly ask why the president was not, in the hours leading up to the disaster, in constant communication with state and local officials in coordinating pre-hurricane evacuation plans and post-hurricane rescue plans. This part of Mr. Sears’ explanation bears quoting: “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 signed, 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.”

Yes, that’s it, of course. The federal government sat on its hands in the days leading up to Katrina — and I guess also in the FOUR FULL DAYS it took for Mr. Bush and his homeboy Michael Brown (FEMA director) to finally become involved after the hurricane struck — because the president had too much respect for state and local officials. Here is spin at its most desperate, and most absurd.

After this hurricane hit and devastated one of America’s great cities, we watched round the clock coverage for four days, as journalists documented the tragedy in excruciating detail. For four days, Americans were trapped in horrific, unimaginable circumstances. We saw people trapped on the roofs of their homes, begging for rescue, rescue that would not come for four days or longer, too late for some, no doubt.

As a country watched in disbelief, journalists themselves were crying out in anger and desperation. Where was the help? How could scores of journalists be on the scene within hours, while the federal government, with resources that state and local governments could never hope to match, could not get anyone down there for four days?

Incredibly, President Bush went on television and told Barbara Walters that a breach in the levees that protected New Orleans could not have been anticipated, even though such a threat had been so widely reported in the days leading up to Katrina’s landfall that even an average citizen would have had to have been in a state of total unconsciousness not to have known it. First, Mr. Bush praised Michael Brown — “You’re doing a good job, Brownie,” — he said to Brown. Days later, Brown was suddenly summoned back to Washington and replaced.

It should be noted, since Mr. Sears conveniently overlooked it, that Michael Brown was made head of a crucial governmental agency, even though his most salient position of “leadership” had been to head some sort of horse show, and he was apparently relieved of his duties in that position as well. But he was a buddy of the President, and that is qualification enough in the Bush administration. It is naïve to think that cronyism doesn’t go on at every stage of politics, I know, but it is one thing to make work for your friends by creating fanciful, do-nothing positions with big titles for them on the taxpayers’ dime, and quite another to put them in important positions that affect public safety and security. The former is mildly corrupt, the latter staggeringly irresponsible.

But never mind all of the rhetoric. Never mind the political posturing. The sight of Americans dying in the streets, the footage of women, children, the sick and elderly, huddled together and pleading for help that was nowhere to be found — for FOUR DAYS — these are the images that no amount of spin will be able to wash away. It was a crisis that everyone, including the federal government, saw coming. There is no excuse — none — for the length of time it took the Bush administration to react.

The day may not yet be at hand, but someday the Bush administration must be held accountable for its colossal lack of judgment, and the dear price our country has paid and will continue to pay for it.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who can be reached at jchriscox@bellsouth.net.)