John Edwards on Katrina

As we watch the Republican party (and a mystifyingly quiet Democratic party) gradually begin to acknowledge that the government has failed tens of thousands of American citizens, 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards wrote a statement that we should have been hearing since Tuesday.

There are immediate needs in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and the first priority is meeting those. But after that, we need to think about the American community, about the one America we think we are, the one we talk about. We need people to feel more than sympathy with the victims, we need them to feel empathy with our national community that includes the poor. We have missed opportunities to make certain that all Americans would be more than huddled masses. We have been too slow to act in the face of the misery of our brothers and sisters. This is an ugly and horrifying wake-up call to America. Let us pray we answer this call.

My perhaps-too-optimistic belief is that the Republican party will pay for their indifference to the suffering of so many citizens. Not to mention the plight of so many innocent Iraqis. It's our job to ensure that that happens. And as extreme as it may sound (I'm shocked to find myself even using this word), there should be a revolution in the making in America today. We've watched a presidency that might have been qualified to deal with our nation as caretakers, who could address quotidian affairs with tolerable-- if disagreeable-- competence, but they've shown themselves to be utterly incapable of leadership under any but the most ordinary circumstances. Expect me to editorialize on this issue in the near future.