Katrina Coverage

Let's ignore whatever remarks he made about gays and/or Satan, and concentrate on the important things in his 10/4 Larry King interview:
...Samaritan's Purse, the organizations I represent, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, we're working with the churches in New Orleans trying to house people. I'm bringing trailers into New Orleans, trying to provide homes and shelters. We're fixing roofs on housing that were damaged. So, that's my focus.
But I agree that there is going to be a land-grab in New Orleans. And, unfortunately, it's going to be the poor people in that Lower 9th Ward and other areas where their land -- I'm not saying it's going to be taken from them, but they won't be allowed to rebuild and someone else will come in.
They will be compensated, I'm sure. But somebody else is going to come in and make a pretty big profit off their misfortune. And that's probably what is going to happen. But you've got a Democratic mayor and a Democratic elected governor, and I would certainly hope that these men and women will do everything they can to stand up and protect the poor.
And if they don't, hold an election each month. That'll keep them focused like laser beams on the problems.
...GRAHAM: ...I just spoke with the White House today about the trailers that FEMA has. You know there are thousands and thousands of trailers. And I think these trailers ought to be given -- these mobile homes ought to be given to the churches for the ministers in the community to decide what are the poor families that need these trailers and not the government.
I don't think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don't think they know how to run a trailer park. But if you give these five trailers to every church and let every church in Louisiana have five trailers and to take in five families that lost their homes and let the church look after them and care for them, and then at the end of one year let the church take possession of the trailer.
It can be theirs. They can sell it. They can give it to another family, do whatever they want to do. But the management of those trailers ought to be in the hands of the churches and not the federal government. These are issues we need to be focusing on.
Obviously, the government does not know how to run trailer parks, and they shouldn't be doing it either. Just as obviously, turning them over to the locals could result in massive corruption and, if there were thousands of locals, massive logistical nightmares.
Nevertheless, a non-profit, sensible, private solution that included all types of NGOs and not just churches would seem to be the best solution. Of course, the GOP will try to line their crony's pockets and the Dems will try to use them to get votes, so that would need to be watched over very carefully.