The AP reported recently on a speech from our old pal Al in San Francisco. What’s Al been up to lately? Well, to his credit and at the urging of his personal physician, he helped underwrite two plane flights to airlift out about 270 evacuees from New Orleans’ “Charity Hospital.”

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Thank you former-VP Gore for making a difference!

Unfortunately, not long after that, Gore went back to his regularly scheduled routine of criticising the President. This time, of course, Gore went after President Bush for the slow emergency response in New Orleans. Here is a bit of what he said at a Sierra Club event in San Francisco:

When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold … the leaders of our nation accountable.

This is where we need to respectfully remind our former Veep that, in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd struck New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, it took far longer for federal resources to get things under control. And the complications related to flooding are far worse in New Orleans than they were in some of the areas effected by Floyd. So perhaps someone should gently remind this former VP that the administration he used to work for took nearly twice as long for one of it’s hurricane events.

Not to say that we couldn’t do better in terms of our national response. What I’m mostly saying here is that we can do better in terms of our rhetoric.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com