As I pointed out earlier in this thread, according to the Wall St Journal there was a huge contrast in the federal response to the Florida hurricanes in 2004, just prior to the election (i.e with Mr Brown already in charge of FEMA) and the federal response this time to the disaster particularly in New Orleans. The obvious conclusion is that for some reason this time the political will to respond massively and immediately was missing. Why this is so is a reasonable question.