John Edwards kicks off his campaign with a statement that infuriates me

Orelia Tyler wanted a team of volunteers to come to her newly restored New Orleans house and spread a load of soil in her back yard. She got more than she bargained for when presidential candidate John Edwards showed up to do the shoveling. No one bothered to tell Tyler that her house would be the scene of a political photo op, but even worse was what Edwards said when he got there.

"That’s why I’m in New Orleans," he said, "...to show what’s possible when we as Americans, instead of staying home and complaining about somebody else not doing what they’re supposed to, we actually take responsibility and we take action."

Well, thank you, but I happen to believe that whoever is not doing what s/he is supposed to be doing should be complained to, loudly and repeatedly, and should be forced to do it. That would be the federal government, whose inept and criminally negligent Army Corps of Engineers caused New Orleans to flood during Hurricane Katrina, and whose Department of Homeland Security did next to nothing when the flood occurrecd. It's great that volunteers are shoveling dirt, but all of the shoveling and rebuilding should be done by the organization--in this case, the federal government--that caused the disaster to occur. That's taking responsibility.