Of Two Minds

Post-Katrina, Americans distrust government- and want much more of it.

To find the moment this fall when the ramifications of this year's killer hurricanes for the future of the federal government became clear, one needs to travel back to the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 9.

By then, the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast had been struggling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for nearly two weeks, and Americans across the country were trying to make sense out of a federal response that seemed anemic, disorganized and ineffective. At this moment, on CNN's Situation Room, the curmudgeonly Jack Cafferty, who plays the program's designated spokesman for the common man, let loose with one of his patented tirades.

"I think one of the reasons there's been so much criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina is that it has jumped out into the public consciousness as a glaring example of the kind of government inefficiency and failure that we all think on some level exists almost everywhere," Cafferty said. "Whether you go to traffic court, whether you try to appeal your property taxes, whether you try to collect your veterans' benefits, there is this sense that government ain't getting the job done, and all of a sudden comes Katrina and it's like, well, 'There's the proof of what we've all been suspicious of all along.' "

Watching this harangue on live TV, one could almost feel the reservoir of trust in government that had built up since Sept. 11 draining out at a much faster rate than the waterlogged streets of New Orleans. This, after all, was just one of a countless number of diatribes in the orgy of righteous indignation about the performance of the government that erupted after Katrina.

Leading the way were journalists on the ground, some of whom experienced directly the frustrations of the people stranded without federal aid (and passed on many rumors of atrocities on the ground that turned out not to be true). The reporters quickly won plaudits from several high-profile media critics for dropping the pretense of objectivity and letting their true feelings show. Apparently, prior to the hurricane, reporters had been insufficiently opinionated and hostile in dealing with government officials. This may come as news to anyone who has ever watched a cable TV news program, sat through a White House press briefing, or seen a network news report on government activities with a title such as "The Fleecing of America."

Shortly after Katrina hit, it became clear that Cafferty was right: Americans were linking the hurricane response to other failures-real and perceived-of government operations. In a CBS News poll in mid-September, less than 30 percent of respondents said they trusted the government to do the right thing, the lowest level since October 1988.

Of course, as much as Americans took Katrina as an endorsement of the notion that government can't be trusted with any task, they and their elected representatives knew that a lot more government was exactly what citizens affected by the disaster needed. This ambivalence was reflected in the political reaction to the tragedy.

Congress quickly ordered up tens of billions of dollars' worth of federal spending to aid the victims and rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, stung by criticism that the initial response had fallen far short of what was required, got the message. The agency started shoveling out reconstruction funds in the form of no-bid contracts.

Then the equal and opposite reaction kicked in. Legislators and Bush administration officials discussed putting a "czar" in charge of the effort, and endorsed the idea of sending squads of inspectors general to look over the shoulders of those spending the money. By early October, FEMA got that message, too, promising to reopen the contracts it had issued in the initial stages of the response effort to competitive bidding.

The cycle that starts with "Why aren't you spending money more quickly?" and ends with "Federal funds have been wasted," which usually takes months or even years to play out, was shortened to a matter of weeks. Look for that cycle to be repeated several times over before hurricane victims from Mississippi to Texas see their communities rebuilt.