But it was Martha!

...dead bodies in the streets, huddled masses trapped in fetid shelters with no food or water. It is also true that Katrina's devastation exposed to a harsh daylight the often ignored problems of the black underclass. But it was easy to miss the valid points in all the political sniping.

What is the significance of the terrible hurricane that rampaged New Orleans? Was it small government? Big government? Or, was it Martha Stewart? These are the questions the deliberative Cathy Young puts forward in her Reason column, "No, This Is the Story of the Hurricane."

Between the conservative right's accussations that moral corruption (via rap music, etc.) brought the levees down in New Orleans, and the far left touting the casualties by the hands of an inept FEMA, Young cites The Economist'’s Megan McArdle, at Asymmetrical Information:

Hurricane Katrina seems to have triggered a lot of deep revelations to everyone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these deep revelations consisted of…reaffirming exactly what they had previously believed.

But though I revere her creme brules and adore her handmade newspaper window dressings, I'm convinceded it was Martha.

"I have learned that I really cannot be destroyed." --Martha Stewart
(Yes, it's a real quote.)