Have you ever played The Blame Game? It’s fun. You should try it. The White House apparently doesn’t want to play. Scott McClellan made that clear at a press conference yesterday, where he mentioned The Game eight times (“We can’t engage in this blame-gaming going on …”). But bloggers of every political stripe can’t get enough. It’s the newest, hottest, hippest game around.

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House has a very comprehensive (and, despite the name, more scientific than partisan) timeline of the response to Katrina. His conclusion:

If I may be allowed a personal opinion?

This has been a clusterfuck from the get-go on all levels and with a few unbelievably heroic exceptions — mostly the [Louisiana] Fish and Wildlife employees who were out in boats rescuing people almost before the storm passed and our selfless military who performed with their usual spectacular competence and courage. I am convinced that any commission or Congressional investigation — if even slightly impartial — will find enough stupidity, incompetence, panic, blame shifting, lying, and bureaucratic ass covering to sate the appetite for name calling and blame assigning of even the most partisan among us.

This was a failure of leadership and competence. But it was also a failure of will. And for that, you need look no farther than the mirror in your bathroom, dearest readers. We elected this crew. We elected the Congresses over the past 25 years — Democratic and Republican — that failed to do the things necessary to make New Orleans safer.

Andrew Sullivan links to Moran’s timeline, but is skeptical of Right Wing Nut House’s silence on the president’s role in the fiasco. Though the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana might have fallen on their faces, Sullivan...

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