"God destroyed a wicked city"...

One disturbing possibility regarding the moseying pace of federal response to Katrina was brought to my attention by a friend of mine (who can identify himself if he wants - but just in case he doesn't want to be targeted by the enraged, I'll leave him nameless for now). And that is that in the minds of many right-wing religious types, New Orleans was Babylon of the West, Sin City without the legitimating flow of corporatized money and Wayne Newton - and Katrina represented God's wrathful judgment upon its residents' and visitors' sinful, breast-flashing ways. And sure enough, at least some fundies are saying exactly that - even if they're trying to be a bit circumspect in not directly chortling with glee.

Consider that not only is the Bush administration chockfull of small-government apologists and riddled with incompetence and cronyism, but it's also a bin full of fringe religionists, including the Ass-Hat-in-Chief himself. So I don't doubt that at some level, at least some officials figured the floods were God's way of Just Saying No to licentiousness.