Bloggers crack the whip, Condi finally responds

Yesterday I brought up the fact that Condi Rice was vacationing in New York City all week, shopping for expensive shoes and taking in Broadway comedies while New Orleans drowned. Today Americablog points us to a New York Times article showing that somebody out there was listening to the bloggers. They buried it quite a ways down in the article, but at least it got out into the press.

The White House battled a chorus of criticism throughout the day as bloggers made much of the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, vacationing in New York during the disaster, where she was spotted at a Broadway show and was to attend the U.S. Open. By Thursday evening, Ms. Rice had cut short her vacation and returned to Washington, where she headed to a staff meeting to discuss ways of coordinating offers of foreign assistance from more than 30 countries and organizations.

She's the Secretary of State. Her job is to be our representative to the leadership of other nations. Wouldn't you think that coordinating offers of aid from "other nations" would be right up her alley? And yet it somehow took from Sunday (when the Hurricane was blowing in and already causing damage) until Thursday night for her to report back to work? After the death toll was already in the thousands?

When people want to argue about whether or not the Federal government reacted too slowly to help people during this disaster, you just point them to that article. Condi should be politically flayed for this one.