Most of the national news media has now turned its attention away from the aftermath of America’s worst natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina, although much good and bad work is still being done to plan the future of New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.

For starters, there is this story today from the Times-Picayune:

The proposed 10-year, $1.9 billion federal-state coastal restoration plan should be approved even though it alone is not adequate to reduce Louisiana’s chronic loss of wetlands and coastline, according to a report released Wednesday by a national science and engineering research group.

Report Gives Nod to Plan for Coast

A coalition of environmental activists are on the case, watchdoging what is going on.

“Our message to decision-makers guiding the process of rebuilding is clear: these fundamental principles must be the foundation of every plan moving forward,” said Cynthia Sarthou, Executive Director of the Gulf Restoration Network. “From a sustainable coast to protecting public health, our desire for a quick recovery can’t ignore the profound, long-term impacts these plans will have on Louisiana’s environment.”

Also there is this story from today’s Washington Post, which has so far been ignored by all the national network and cable telvision news shows the best we can tell from surfing.

The litany of problems faced by New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is unmatched by any other U.S. city in recent history. Billions of dollars in public and private funds are going to be spent on rebuilding New Orleans, but those efforts could be undermined by forces that have long beset the city - a tradition of corruption and dysfunction and a weak economy that clouded New Orleans’s future years before the rains began in August.

Burdens of Past Limit New Orleans’s Future

These issues must stay in focus - under the media microscope.

This story starts at the rear

Now it can be told: the real reason the federal government bungled its disaster response to Hurricane Katrina.

It was because of that horse’s ass guy. When the defrocked director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, testified to Congress this week, he blamed the usual suspects - the governor, the mayor, the media.

But he also fingered a mysterious group with an indelicate name.

“Ironically, it started with an organization called horsesass.org,” Brown told Congress, “that on some blog published a false and, frankly, in my opinion, defamatory statement that the media just continued to repeat over and over. … I guess it’s the media’s job. But I don’t like it. I think it’s false. It came at the wrong time. And I think it led potentially to me being pulled out of Louisiana because it made me somewhat ineffective.”

So there you have it. The man heading the response to the biggest natural disaster in the history of the most powerful country in the world was neutered by a Web site named for the buttocks of a horse.

Or really for Tim Eyman.

Turns out the “organization” is one 42-year-old guy, an “uptight East Coast Jew” named David Goldstein who lives in Seattle’s Seward Park.

You may recall him. He’s an aggressively liberal, smart, foul-mouthed irritant who two years ago ran a campaign to have Eyman legally declared a “horse’s ass.”

That got lots of publicity but didn’t make the ballot. So Goldstein did what any marginally employed agitator would do: He started a blog.

He kept the name “horse’s ass” mostly because it had given him his 15 minutes.

“People say I should change it, but it’s become my brand,” Goldstein says. “I’m stuck with it. I’m the horse’s ass guy.”

On Sept. 2, Goldstein posted e-mail from a local horse enthusiast claiming FEMA’s Brown had been fired from the International Arabian Horse Association. Goldstein softened this to “forced to resign.” Then he opined that regardless, running a horse group hardly qualifies someone to head a major federal agency.

This tidbit, highlighting what a crony hire Brown was, is now known to millions of Americans. It percolated up from Goldstein through the blogosphere, newspapers, TV and on to Congress.

That the horse’s ass guy could influence national politics is one of those power-of-the-Internet moments.

That the head of FEMA would blame the horse’s ass guy is surely one of the lowest bureaucratic excuses ever. Not to mention an epic admission of incompetence.

Goldstein, though, has had an epiphany. Maybe he can rake muck for a living. He has plans for a think tank to “attack the right as relentlessly as they attack us.” His blog now is ranked in the top 300 most visited (out of millions). He’s hoping to land a talk-radio gig.

Two years ago, I figured this horse’s ass guy would be a one-trick pony. Who knew it might be a career?

Shelby County State Senator Hank Erwin has pronounced that the storms Katrina and Rita are God’s punishment for our sins.

Birmingham News story

“He somehow doesn’t believe in the loving, forgiving, redeeming God of Christianity. I hope his voters investigate and find out what religion he actually practices,” said the Rev. Jack Zylman.

“Maybe his unChristian statement has something to do with his past. The (Birmingham) News says he was a “conservative talk show host.” If this qualifies him to be a State Senator and a theologian, then Rush Limbaugh should be the next President and Pope.

“The Alabama Republican Party plans to nominate next year: Roy “Kill a Gay for God” Moore for Governor; George Wallace, Jr. for Lt. Governor (he keynoted the last convention of the Kouncil of Konservative Citizens, the new KKK); and Hank “Sic ‘em, God” Erwin for State Senate.

“Growing up, I never knew clowns could be this evil,” Zylman said. “Alabama, love it or grieve it.”

That’s broadcasting for you. It is not unusual to get bumbed by some movie star.

Here’s the note:

Sorry to have to say that we are no longer able to do the New Orleans story as a topical local story has come up with Tom Hanks filming the Da Vinci Code in Mid Lothian Scotland. Apologies again and perhaps we might look at this another time.

Best regards
Lisa McClure
Producer
The Radio Cafe
BBC Radio Scotland