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“In the jaw-dropping comment of the night, Gov. Jindal went on to invoke government failure during Hurricane Katrina as a model for how to understand how we should move forward as a country. The idea being that since government failed during Hurricane Katrina, we should understand not that government should not be allowed to fail again, but that government is inherently fail (sic) ... the implication of it is not that the lesson to have learned from Katrina is that we ought to make the government work better 'cause we need the government for some stuff, but that we don't need the government 'cause the government can't do anything.”

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.... proposed legislation in Uganda calling for harsh penalties against gays, including execution.... [In an article by the Guardian, it was clarified that the evangelicals were pressing for tougher laws, rather than specifically the death penalty.

Maddow identified the three American evangelicals who attended the conference in Uganda and elaborated on their backgrounds ...Maddow interviewed International Healing Foundation founder Richard Cohen, whose organization sent Brundidge to the conference in Uganda...[International Healing Foundation is a group which “turns” people from homosexual to heterosexual]

Cohen wasted no time disputing Maddow’s earlier contention that his organization was "closely linked" to the proposed legislation in Uganda

”We were invited in the spring of this year, as you said, we sent Caleb Brundidge and he shared his wonderful story of change from homosexual to heterosexual. And he told them to have compassion, love and understanding for all people who experience homosexual feelings. So, we do not believe in this legislation, we had no knowledge of it, and we disavow all relationship to it.”[We have no way of knowing what was said or done at the conference except this man's word, bear in mind]

Not surprisingly, the interview became contentious and Maddow succeeded in tripping up Cohen at least twice while citing passages from his book.

After Maddow read an excerpt claiming homosexuals are much more likely to molest children and students, Cohen conceded that the would remove the passage before the book is reprinted "because we don’t want such things to be used against homosexual persons."[He didn't say it wasn't what he believes.]

Maddow challenged Cohen about his assertions on "factors that may lead to homosexual desires," including "divorce, death of a parent, adoption, religion, or race." After initially denying that race was among the factors he cited, Cohen conceded that it was and, when pressed by Maddow, he could not elaborate. "How does race make you gay," Maddow asked. "It doesn’t," Cohen said.

Maddow also challenged Cohen on his professional credentials, pointing out that he is not a licensed therapist: “You’re not licensed by any accrediting body and so you’ve just stated that your credentials are your personal experience of not being gay anymore.” [He never responded to the “credentials” question, but went on to talk about his transition from gay to hetero]

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During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

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Jindal's story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn't find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident. In his own words:

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Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance.

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Now, some of it is the scale of the catastrophe and that, you know, it's hard, you know, when you -- it's hard to plan for something on that massive of a scale in terms of the storm.
But really at this point, I don't think it's time to be critical of the state's efforts or the federal efforts while they're rescuing people off roofs, while they're picking people up out of the water. I think it's important they rescue every single person. I think it's important that while there are people's lives are in danger, that they get them away.

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Although hundreds of volunteer's boats eventually received search and rescue assignments that morning from the DWFE and taken to critical areas throughout the flood zone of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish through circuitous and hazardous routes, some volunteers were turned away because their houseboats, party barges, and deep draft boats were too big or unsafe for a rescue mission. And some volunteers simply waited so long to get an assignment they decided to go back home.

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The suggestion is that 'government's inherent failure at intervening', is the lesson we should draw from Katrina (not 'government failures during Katrina were unacceptable, and we should strive to make them more effective because government intervention is VITALLY NEEDED in these kind of situations').

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