The Big Disconnect in New Orleans, in which CNN compares what federal officals say to the reality on the ground. Absolutely shocking.

One example:

# [FEMA Director] Brown: I’ve just learned today that we … are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

# CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It’s gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they’re in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I’ve seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There’s over 200 patients still here remaining. …We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly … where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations.

Harry Connick Jr. on how easy it is to get into New Orleans. (Thanks, Marty, for mentioning that one).

Mayor to Feds: Get Off Your Asses (CNN)

A Can’t-Do Government (New York Times). Including this memorable quote:

“On Wednesday,” said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., “reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!”

Harry Connick Jr. Voiced some of my suspicions (blog post).

The FEMA chief blaming the victims (this is a story I wrote about earlier)

From Margins of Society to Center of Tragedy (New York Times)

Critics Say Bush Undercut Flood Prevention Funding (Washington Post)