It's the size of the problem

Rich Lowry at NRO's The Corner is at the point of frustration over what's going on in New Orleans. He relays another email that recounts some heart-breaking details about what's happening to people on the ground:

I know people are sick of this, but one more e-mail:

'A lot of Bush fans are frankly aghast at how tone-deaf the president is at this moment. They just showed clips of New Orleans prisoners sitting in a huge group, some of them handcuffed together with plastic cuffs with flood water lapping at their feet. They have been there for two days. Prisoners have their shirts pulled over their noses because the stench is too overwhelming.

Fox News is the only news crew along a particular stretch of highway downtown. Hundreds of people are standing around, wanting to know where they should go to get water and food. They have not had either for days. Shep Smith showed a 3-year-old boy who was sitting in his mother's lap. He was sick and barely conscious. Dehydrated. Hungry. Not a single authority figure was anywhere around. Shep had to turn his interview with a state police spokeswoman into a plea to her to send help to his location for those poor people.

The scenes I'm seeing on Fox are things you'd think you'd only see in Somalia or Bangladesh. This is the United States of America. We can't get a single truck full of water to these people? We can't get a single helicopter to fly over and drop supplies? A cop car and a military truck roll up from the distance, giving the suffering people hope. Do they stop as the desperate wave? No. They drive through. They can't even stop to tell them where they should go to get any life-saving water or food.'

I am starting to feel a mixture of outrage and shame...

From where I sit this is more indicative of the scope of the problem than it is the nature of any individuals involved in trying to help. I can only imagine the frustration brewing in those who are stuck in the middle of this and those trying to help. Where do you start?