TO CRITIQUE the government is as American as apple pie, but there is a time and place to make political hay. With bodies still floating through destroyed Louisiana homes, though, Robert Kennedy Jr. has found time to wax philosophic, arguing that Katrina's fury is due to global warming--and all due to the administration's refusal to accept the Kyoto Protocols. That the thankfully defunct Kyoto was a "gotcha" treaty that unfairly targeted the U.S. while ignoring China and India--and that it never came close to passing muster in the U.S. Senate--seems not to matter to Mr. Kennedy. What matters is the chance to fire a broadside.
The timing is horrible; his claims, specious. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Stanley Goldenberg: "The data suggest that we are in the beginning of a warm Atlantic phase, and thus an active Atlantic hurricane era may be under way, similar to that last seen from the late 1920s to the late 1960s." In short, like much else in life, hurricanes go in cycles.
In these dark days, Americans should once more stick together, help each other, and pray. There will be a time for post-facto assessment, and perhaps changes need to be made. But politics? Not now.