With Hurricane Isaac menacing New Orleans as Republicans meet in Tampa, the national media are reminding everyone how badly President George W. Bush screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But Bush’s real New Orleans legacy isn’t those images of storm survivors desperate for food and water. It’s New Orleans’ spanking-new flood-protection system — which helps protects the city from a catastrophic repeat.

 

Seven years on, the images from Katrina remain indelible: survivors begging outside the city’s Convention Center and Superdome; rescuers terrified to enter the lawless metropolis without armed guard.

 

Yet New Orleans has moved on. Visit now, and you won’t find a city wallowing in self-pity, but one whose people have rebuilt.

That’s a small miracle...