Katrina's Social, Economic, Political Aftermath: A Mess No Matter How You Cut It

The vastness of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina is more than geographical in nature, stretching as it does across three states and affecting dozens more as refugees resettle. And that vastness is well represented in the blogosphere discussions as well.

The socioeconomic fallout
Trapping as it did mostly poor Americans, Hurricane Katrina has jump-started numerous discussions about race, poverty and fragile domestic safety nets, as evidenced by today's top blog post titled "Whatever: Being Poor" by writer John Scalzi. It ought to be mandatory reading, says PSOTD blogger.

The political fallout
Today's second blog post, "War and Piece," by Laura Rozen points out that events were staged and then rapidly dismantled for one visit by President Bush to the disaster area; disgust and outright anger (language warning) from bloggers abound toward the White House and its dangerously weak response, even as the Bush Administration tries to smooth over the political damage (today's most-shared link).

The personnel fallout?
Even conservative blogger Michelle Malkin is calling for the head of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael Brown, today's third most-blogged-about personality, for incompetence. Something, apparently, Brown's former employer did, according to the Boston Herald.Yet the party-line guys at PowerLine find a new source of blame for the slow official response: the media? As if the on-the-scene, 24-hour-coverage media didn't know what was going on?

Where is Katrina-related buzz falling toward the various responses by agencies? FEMA is definitely leading the pack:

New sources of help
The Internet continues to play a role in recovery and relief efforts. More than 50,000 entries have already been logged into the PeopleFinderVolunteer web site to coordinate data about misplaced victims trying to locate family members and friends.

Passings...
So intense is the coverage of Katrina that the weekend death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, and the subsequent nomination of yet-to-be-confirmed John G. Roberts to replace him, seem to be afterthoughts in the grand scheme of things.