How ABOUT those busses?

And speaking of the right-wing spin, I'll be keeping my eye on that much-publicized bit about the school busses sitting unused in New Orleans, and trying to get to the bottom of it.

Obviously, it's become the primary weapon in the Fox et al attempts to pin the blame entirely on Louisiana officials. That's disingenuous on its surface for several reasons (logistics, public cooperation, funding, drivers, a destination), but I admit that I haven't heard any solid explanations from the likes of Landrieu or Nagin. Nevertheless, I've also heard (but can't confirm) that the school bus system had been privatized.

But here are some other issues. 1) I've heard that in fact New Orleans did mobilize city busses to evacuate people. 2) There's still the fact that this had been declared a federal state of emergency two days before the storm hit.

I imagine there's more that the local folks could have done, but that does nothing to absolve the administration of their much-more-massive responsibility and utter lack of response for days. More as I learn about it.