Demagogue

Many Dutch are flabbergasted by the utter incompetence of the American government in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I've read or seen on TV more than one commentator or "man in the street" say that it couldn't happen here. Not the disaster--no imagination is needed to envision scores of Dutchmen killed or rendered homeless by collapsing levees and terrible floods, since it has happened here in living memory. But the idea that so many people would be left without any help from the government for so long after the storm is just astonishing, and that's the thing that "couldn't happen here."

This is just another illustration of the general bewilderment of many Dutchmen over the inexplicable things Americans and our government do, which I touched on in a recent post about the popular book Americans Aren't Nuts (by the way: thanks to Dutch commenter John for helping out with a translation problem in that post).

But the Dutch shouldn't be too hasty. Everywhere you look, Dutch society or the Dutch government emulates the sort of appalling behavior previously seen via satellite from America.

I offer two examples from current news, one of a type of government misconduct that happens all too often in the States and is now causing a major scandal here, and the other of the latest attempt by the creator of Big Brother to prove that good taste and common sense no longer exist.

By the way, one of the main suspects in the Natalee Holloway case has returned to the Netherlands to go back to school. I thought you'd like to know.