I have a hard time accepting that we, as a country, sort of let New Orleans fade away. But the fact is that people don't seem to care that a whole American City was pretty much wiped out.

Maybe it's the perception that the town brought much of the tragedy on itself: the police ran away, city gangs came out to terrorize survivors, incompetent politicians and officials let bodies rot on the streets for weeks. Although much of the coverage of this stuff is now known to have been overblown, those are the stories that have stayed with the public.

And now come the indictments for corruption and hurricane relief fraud. One a day, according to the US Attorney. Not good.

Add this to all that: the two police officers, filmed in the act of looting the Wal Mart after Katrina, were just cleared of the charges. Apparently they had been given official permission to steal those items seen in the film, which appeared to include children's clothing. They did receive administrative punishment for letting other people steal, and for being 'discourteous' to the NBC correspondent. You can't make it up.