What Government Is For

I feel like I'm doing nothing but quoting today, but here are some words of wisdom from E. J. Dionne in today's Washington Post:

The rich, the middle class and the poor--all of us--bank on law, government, collective action and public goods more than we ever want to admit. The dreaded word "infrastructure" puts people to sleep at city council meetings and congressional hearings. But when publicly built infrastructure--those levees that held for so many years--breaks down, we realize that the things that seem boring and not worth thinking about are essential.

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This is said not to be a time for politics, and we can surely do without the petty sort. But how we pull our country together, make our government work at a time of great need, and share the sacrifices that war and natural catastrophe have imposed on us--these are inescapably political questions.

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Katrina is the work of nature, but what happens from this point forward is the responsibility of political leadership. Is it possible that in the face of a catastrophe of this magnitude, Washington will not even bother to rethink our nation's priorities?