GOP: Government no good ... except when you need it (like after Sandy)

Nature Votes Last 

By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT

A catastrophic storm has no feelings, no fury, no compassion and certainly no political position. Hurricanes may sound like bridge partners at the Boca community center - Sandy, Irene and Katrina - until they land and become monsters. The mistake, perhaps, is trying to anthropomorphize them.

But that doesn't mean that a fatal blow from Mother Nature will not alter the course of human nature. When the seas rose earlier this week, swamping the world's greatest city and battering a helpless state, the turbulence of the elements washed away the sand castles of politics.

Climate change is to the Republican base what leprosy once was to healthy humans - untouchable and unmentionable. Their party is financed by people whose fortunes are dependent upon denying that humans have caused the earth's weather patterns to change for the worse.

At the same time, Republicans have spent the last year trying to win an argument about the role of government as a helping hand. By now, most people know that Mitt Romney, in his base-pandering mode during the primaries, made the federal disaster agency FEMA sound like a costly nuisance, better off orphaned to the states or the private sector.

(More here.)