Culture August 28, 2009

It has now been four years since the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina breeched the levees in and around New Orleans, producing the most widespread destruction that a major American city has suffered in the past century. At the time—nearly one year into George W. Bush’s second term—the woeful government response appeared to distill the worst features of GOP small-government ideology, while dramatizing Bush’s seeming indifference to the fortunes of the black, the poor, and city-dwelling Americans. Today, however, memories of Katrina and its aftermath have faded, and the moral of the story has gravitated into the familiar orbit of