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For the past few days I've worked hard to put down my thoughts about the anniversary of Katrina, but no matter how many tie I try I just can't seem to get it out right. But rather than say nothing, I think I should at least point the way to a few of the best posts on the subject I've found along the way

First, over at TPM, guest host Reader DK has posted a letter from a friend who once lived in New Orleans. It's short, but it really hits home.

Second is a much longer effort from Publius over at Law and Politics. After watching the first half of Spike Lee's amazing HBO documentary he needed to vent, and the result is one of the best posts I've seen on the subject.

What both posts have in common is a deep frustration, or perhaps even anger, with the fact that we as a nation seem to have forgotten entirely what happened and what it told us about ourselves. Here I think Publius really is on to something with his discussion of the pace of modern life; no doubt that's a huge part of the problem. What bothers me about his post, however, is that it seems to suggest that there's not much we can do about it. And while I certainly wouldn't argue with his claim that the pace of life has dramatically changed, nor suggest that we should work to reverse that trend, I refuse to accept the implication that we can't learn to adapt our politics to this new reality and create a system that will meet our modern needs.

So what's my solution? I don't think it will surprise any of my long term readers when I say its leadership. The problem, as I see it, with our national reaction to Katrina wasn't poor leadership - it was a lack of leadership at all. No one - and I really do mean no one - stepped up to take the issue on as their own. Not the President. Not Congress. Not state officials. No one. The problem is I have absolutely no idea why.

But just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it can't. Imagine, for a moment, if in the aftermath of the storm the president had decided to really do something about this. Imagine if in the tradition of great presidents like TR, FDR, JFK, or even (to some extent) LBJ he had asked the nation to come together and sacrifice, asked each of us to do our part to help our fellow citizens in their hour of desperate need. Imagine if, rather than simply letting it all slip away, he had taken the initial outpouring of support we saw from around the world and harnessed it to work towards a greater good?

It's not that the pace of life has made it impossible for us to rise to great challenges; it's that it has made speed in our response to such challenges much more critical. Our national attention span has shortened, but it hasn't disappeared entirely. The window of opportunity may have grown smaller, but it still exists. With leadership, it still is possible to do great things.

Causes and movement don't happen on their own, and they don't happen overnight. But they do still happen. One day, hopefully not in the too far distant future, we'll have someone in the White House who understands that, who remembers that a nation is much more than a simple collection of disconnected individuals, and who remembers that together we can do much more than we can on our own.

UPDATE: Here's an article from today's NYT that's definitely worth noting. It's all part of a much larger year after package that definitely deserves your attention.