David Brooks recent column about the looming issues of race and disaster recovery made me think of one thing. 1967.

On that summer Sunday morning, the officers had expected to find only a handful of individuals in the bar, but instead there were 82 people celebrating the return of two local veterans from the war in Vietnam. Despite the large number, police decided to arrest everyone present. A crowd soon gathered around the establishment, protesting as patrons were led away. After the last police car left, a group of angry black males who had observed the incident began breaking the windows of the adjacent clothing store. Shortly thereafter, full-scale rioting began throughout the neighborhood, which continued into Monday, July 24, 1967, and for the next few days. Despite a conscious effort by the local news media to avoid reporting on it so as not to inspire copy-cat violence, the mayhem expanded to other parts of the city with theft and destruction beyond the 12th Street/Clairmount Avenue vicinity.

Some 8,000 National Guardsmen were called in after 48 hours to quell the disorder, but their presence only fueled more violence. Willie Horton - Detroit resident, and popular Detroit Tigers baseball player - arrived after a ball game, and stood on a car in the middle of the crowd wearing his baseball uniform but could not calm them, despite his impassioned pleas. U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) likewise attempted to ease tensions but was equally unsuccessful. Michigan Governor George Romney and President Lyndon Johnson disagreed about the legality of sending in federal troops. Johnson said he could not send federal troops in without Romney declaring "a state of insurrection"; Romney was reluctant to declare it for fear it would relieve insurance companies of their obligations to reimburse policyholders for the damage being done. Eventually, Johnson sent in federal troops from the 82nd Airborne of nearby Selfridge Air Force Base in suburban Macomb County, without a state of insurrection being declared.

The disparate pictures of the black man "looting" and the white couple "finding" groceries isn't going to make people much happier when they have been without food, water, sanitary facilities and medical care for almost a week by the time that Preznit Long Vacations shows up tomorrow and says "Zero Tolerance for Looters". Coming from a man who has never survived more than six inches from the silver spoon attached to mommy's apron, that's Big Talk, eh?.

Of course, he'll probably meet with the politically reliable republican congress-criminals from the area, and with a few token homeless folks. He'll probably bow his head in 'solemn prayer' with some poor soul who wants nothing more than a shower and a hot meal, and to perhaps know where their relatives are.

Then he'll declare that the answer to restoring New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast is to pass more tax-cuts to allow small businesses on the Gulf to pull themselves "up by their bootstraps' in the aftermath of katrina. Following that momentous announcement, he'll climb back aboard Air Force one, sign an Executive Order to shoot all looters and then settle down for a nap.

Nah, I'm not politicizing this at all. This is a culmination of republican domestic policy failures, and I for one, intend to point it out frequently until 2006. Why are our Democratic Leaders not doing the same? I'm sure that someone on the Mayberry Machiavelli team is even now leading a working group scouring the Federal Register for any comments made by a Democrat about cutting the Corps of Engineers, or pork-laden water control projects on the Mississippi and Delta. Just gathering it to launch against them in 2006, in or out of context. Waiting is a mistake. Play offense. They are.