Not So Fast

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
The American Spectator

WASHINGTON -- The stars of modern broadcast media take prodigious pride in the speed with which they can communicate to the masses. Of course, these artistes remain utterly oblivious of the poisonous concomitant of that speed, namely, the media's almost inane superficiality. Discovering the cause of the New Orleans tragedy will take months, perhaps years. In reading a brilliant history of Winston's Churchill's efforts to write his monumental history of World War II, which is about to be published here, In Command of History, I have been struck by the differing explanations of great events that historians accumulate in an event's aftermath. Doubtless, in the aftermath of the New Orleans tragedy there will accumulate many explanations. One thing that the historians will note for a certitude is that recriminations by public officials came in almost faster than aid and rescue relief -- and certainly in greater abundance.