Our conspicuously absent Vice President has sent out word -

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has postponed his visit to Alberta in order to tend to duties at home in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Marisa Etmanski, spokeswoman for Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, says the White House contacted Klein's office Saturday.

Cheney had planned to visit Alberta on Thursday and Friday, stopping first in Calgary and then visiting Fort McMurray and touring the oilsands.

Looks like Cheney's been called to clean up Bush's mess once again. He was "on the sidelines" yesterday at the Rose Garden when Bush spoke:

As Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines, as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Bush's overseer of communications strategy. Their presence underscored how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis it faces.

As Cookie Jill at Skippy says, these are words that haunt the soul - by Mr. Aaaron broussard, President of Jefferson Parrish, on Meet the Press. Crooks and Liars has the video:

Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

....And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

Update: Transcript is here but the video is so powerful, watch it.

Geraldo continues his compassionate coverage. I just watched him and a member of the National Guard carry a woman in her wheelchair down three flights of steps at a nursing home. She wouldn't go without her bible, her dressing gown and her medicine and they got those for her.

Rick Leventhal is talking about the stench in the streets. He says they are told it is mostly coming from rotting meat.

The Boston Globe reports two bars have reopened in the French Quarter - they are serving warm beer.

The public risk health is now a major concern. Many kids have viral gastroenteritis.

There may be thousands still left and authorities are going house to house to find them.

With most of New Orleans evacuated, there may be more dead bodies than living persons left behind. What will become of the dead?

Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who predicted that the death toll could reach into the thousands, said Saturday that officials were assembling refrigerated 18-wheelers that would serve as roaming morgues. Nagin said it might be impossible to find enough room to bury the bodies; they might all be cremated.

Many may never be identified. Particularly if there are no wallets or identification on them.

I wrote on Friday that confirmation hearings for Judge Roberts should be delayed in the wake of the Katrina disaster. Armando at Daily Kos shared this view.

It seems some Democrats are coming round to this way of thinking. TV news this morning is reporting that Sen. Chris Dodd says Bush should ask O'Connor to stay on. Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn, apparently want to press on with the hearings.

My prediction: They will be delayed. No one's heart is in them.

Update: Word reaches me that Kennedy and Schumer are calling for a delay out of respect.

Those with and without cars.

[New York Times]

Frank Rich does it yet again, with concrete examples and dots a seventh-grader could connect.

From the president's administration's inattention to threats before 9/11 to his disappearing act on the day itself to the reckless blundering in the ill-planned war of choice that was 9/11's bastard offspring, Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance.

The president's declaration that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." The administration's complete obliviousness to the possibilities for energy failures, food and water deprivation, and civil disorder in a major city under siege needs only the Donald Rumsfeld punch line of "Stuff happens" for a coup de grâce.

Rich goes on to describe how Bush lost the battle of New Orleans - beginning with Fox News last Thursday:

The Washington Post reports on the behind-the-scenes power grab Bush tried to pull on LA. Governor Kathleen Blanco in an attempt to shift the blame for New Orleans:

Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

Don't miss the op-ed by New Orleans-born author Anne Rice in the Sunday New York Times, Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? She answers the question, "Why didn't they leave?"

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

I just received an email saying permalinks are now established for the following articles:

• Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans (Army Times, 2 Sept 2005)
• Fearing riots, Guard rejects food airdrops; Officials exploring other options for delivering supplies (Stars and Stripes, 3 Sept 2005)
• Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3 Sept 2005)

Name your caption.

We should never again in our lifetimes have to see pictures like this in our country.

[Source: the Guardian]

New Orleans has been left to the dead and dying.

Update: John Amato of Crooks and Liars expresses his thoughts on the devastation here at Huffington Post.

Update: Hunter at Daily Kos: Unforgivable.

The Sunday Observer:

It is clear from talking to survivors that what happened in New Orleans last week was far more extensive, bloody and terrifying than the authorities have admitted so far.

I've looked though hundreds of photo compilations and have settled on these as the best collections. They are all by news organizations, and they are decent sized and loaded on single pages so you don't have to keep clicking.

• Set One
• Set Two
• Set Three

[Via Straight Up, and don't skip this harrowing missive from Tuesday by a pathologist who was in New Orleans to attend an HIV/AIDS convention.]