President Bush was famously on vacation when the disaster hit. He and his hurriedly reconstituted staff of political operatives floundered for a while, reflexively pursuing the time-honored White House strategy of admitting no mistakes -- and sticking to it, even after it was clear that the nation had seen those mistakes with its own eyes.

But those percentages [ed: referring to Americans who have donated to relief charites] also mean that it is important not to draw hasty conclusions about the ultimate political impact of this tragedy. More specifically, it's important to ignore the hasty conclusions that have already been drawn, both here and abroad, about the victory of "big government" and the death of a certain kind of American individualism. The German chancellor -- once again using American politics in his election campaign -- has already called the disaster an argument for "strong government." Polly Toynbee, a columnist for Britain's Guardian, declared that Katrina revealed "a hollowed superpower . . . a country that is not a country at all, but atomised, segmented individuals living parallel lives as far apart as possible." A Los Angeles Times article, headlined "A Comeback for Big Government," more objectively quoted lots of experts agreeing that in the wake of the hurricane, the administration will "put aside its interest in small government."