Inadequate handling of the devistation left by Hurricane Katrina has prompted scathing criticism of American politicians. President Bush was criticized for verbally "pandering" to public opinion, while little is done about the tragedy. In a WWL radio interview, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called for a "moratorium on press conferences" and said

"They are feeding the public a line of bull, and they are spinning, and people are dying" says New Orleans major in a frustrated tone.

Malik Rahim, a recent Green Party candidate for New Orleans City Council, describes the poor organization as criminal, and called for his party to come help when the federal government would permit it. Grammy award-winning rapper Kanye West created controversy when he said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and that "America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible" in a telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Television news reporters have also levied harsh citisism against the politicians whom they were interviewing. Anderson Cooper (CNN) took Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., Louisiana) to task for her detachment (WMV, trancsript). Andrea Mitchell (MSNBC), Bill Oreilly (FOX), Geraldo Rivera (FOX), Scarborough (MSNBC), Shepard Smith (FOX), Robert Siegel (NPR), and Paula Zahn (CNN) have also harshly criticized their interviewees (WMV).

One broadcaster bitterly exclaimed "The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better."

Not all of the coverage has been concerned with the failures at the federal or state level. The American Family Association's Agape Press published praise for the hurricane's destruction as an instrument of God's mercy, in that it "wiped out rampant sin".

In further bizarre and twisted coverage, Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, said "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again." Furthermore “New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says.