So the President called Gov. Blanco and asked her for an immediate evacuation

This, according to the AP published in New Orleans Times-Picayune. Read this and weep (and notice the dateline):

Mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans

8/28/2005, 10:48 a.m. CT The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.,

"There doesn't seem to be any relief in sight," Blanco said.

She said Interstate 10, which was converted Saturday so that all lanes headed one-way out of town, was total gridlock.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Nagin said.

The storm surge most likely could topple the city's levee system, which protect it from surrounding waters of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes, the mayor said. The bowl-shaped city must pump water out during normal times, and the hurricane threatened pump power.

Previous hurricanes evacuations in New Orleans were always voluntary, because so many people don't have the means of getting out. Some are too poor and there is always a French Quarter full of tourists who get caught.

"This is a once in a lifetime event," the mayor said. "The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly," the mayor said.

Why wasn't the evacuation order giving Saturday. Why did it take federal intervention (in the form of a personal request from President Bush to Gov. Kathleen Blanco) to get the locals to do their job (which they didn't do anyway).

Now, Andrew Sullivan, with whom I sometime agree, is all upset over the Bush administration's performance during this crisis. Here's the nut of his viewpoint:

The death toll because of the administration's incompetence is a human tragedy.

Like so many of the left, if anything goes wrong anywhere, it's Bush's fault. It's seems to be a manifestation of the old "man with a hammer" syndrome.

No Andrew. You don't get it. Like so many academics, sequestered in a picturesque "progressive" Northeastern villages, you're only reacting to what you've seen on television. From your comments, it's obvious that you've personally never dealt with a Hurricane. I used to get the same noise from my in-laws in New York, who somehow thought that a Nor'Easter is just like a hurricane -- storm that tears up your yard and loosens a few roof shingles and that's it.

I 've seen both, and no they're not the same.

Everyone who lives on the South Atlantic or the Gulf Coast knows or should know that hurricanes are big dangerous storms that kill people. And if people don't prepare for them, they will suffer after the storm has blown through. Mayor Ray Nagin did nothing to evacuate his city (see the above link to the AP photo). The mandatory evacuation order did not happen until after President Bush called and leaned on Governor Kathleen Blanco, who in turn, leaned on new Orleans' feckless Mayor Ray Nagin.

You see Andrew, going into a hurricane, you have to make the assumption that you'll have no electricity for days. You make the assumption that getting around afterwards is going to be either a) difficult or b) impossible due to downed trees and powerlines. You know that the Cavalry will come eventually, but that you're on your own for the first few days. It was that way after Hugo and, more recently, Fran. My New York City born-and-bred wife, thought that Hurricane Fran would bring " a little wind and rain", that it was going to be "no big deal". Moreover, she would be able to go to work the next day.

Wrong.

We were without electricity and running water for four days. We had no damage to our home, since we lived at the top of the hill, not the bottom. The people at the bottom of the hill lost their homes, because the water had nowhere to go. That stated, after the hurricane our house was nothing more than a big, wooden tent.

And we made do. We took what we had and made what we needed. And we survived. The Cavalry came, but only after four days. Which was more or less expected, at least in my eyes.

Looking back, it seems that state and local officials in Louisiana were paralyzed in the face of the coming disaster. And it reminds me in an odd way of the huge snow storm Washington DC had in the early 90s. Everybody saw it coming but no one at the local level lifted a finger to get prepared. There were no plows ready. Or salt trucks. The local cops weren't called out en masse to make sure that order prevailed. When the shit hit the fan, there was lots of crying and gnashing of teeth, but nothing got done. And the City suffered because there was nobody in charge. Local leaders abdicated their responsiblity. It's like they thought that by being mayor, they wouldn't be called on to make big life or death decisions; that they only had to divide the slush fund that is the city budget.

Ask Rudy about that.

No, Andrew, this time you're wrong. Bush is not responsible for the complete failure of leadership at the state and local level. And the Cavalry got there as quick as could reasonable be expected. You see, local leaders have to lead. And this time, they did nothing. Except blame Bush.

And that's not leadership.