Zero Tolerance on NOLA Looting Unless Looter is Named Halliburton or Bechtel

From the International Herald Tribune:

President George W. Bush told the television network ABC on Thursday, "there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."

Zero tolerance is meaningless when the White House lets the biggest looters of Hurricane Katrina walk off with billions of dollars.

We are not referring to the people crashing through storefronts and wading through chest-high water with clothes, food and pharmaceuticals. Some folks are disgusting in their thuggishness, but many others are simply desperate, having gone for days without food or water. The latter are living out one of the most famous hypothetical problems in moral reasoning: Should a husband steal a cancer drug he cannot afford for his dying wife?