READ THIS, FOLLOW THE LINKS, and when you do remember that through all of this Al Gore wanted no publicity, it has nothing to do with image with him. It is about people in need and meeting that need and that is all. Had a Republican politician, especially those in charge in D.C. right now, even bothered to conceive of this it would have been announced ahead of time, bannered on Fox News for days, and been held up as “proof” of compassionate conservatism. And then maybe a Cessna would have been sent to get a couple of photogenic and heartstring tugging patients hauled out of NO under the glare of the klieg lights with said politicians making sure they got lots of face time.

Democrats do it differently. There is nothing saintly about the Democratic party, there are plenty of Democrats who have a hell of a lot to answer for in all of this. But Democrats are more and more being shown to be the ones concerned with results when it counts.

The skinny on Al Gore’s coordination of the airlift:

At TPM Cafe, Greg Simon, the pres of FasterCures, recounted the determined (and agonizing) logistical coordination that resulted, finally, in the 2 airlifts of patients and evacuees to Tennessee. (If you have time, you should click over and read the fuller story yourself.) Here’s my take on it.

Gore flew from Tenn. to Dallas (to pick up the chartered plane), to La. to Tenn. – and then did the whole thing again the next day. The idea was hatched Thursday night, and the advocates for the mission, including Simon, Gore and staff butted heads with the bureacrats for the next 2 days through mid-day Saturday.

At nearly every turn, FEMA or NDMS and military officials tried to stop these 2 flights.

The 1st flight out on Saturday was mostly patients in need of supervised care, including dialysis and insulin, and the second one on Sunday had more evacuees and fewer patients.

After landing slots were denied numerous times during the planning, the one person in Washington who would grant the 2 landing slots ended up being the single Democratic member of Bush’s cabinet, Norm Mineta. That took a personal call from Gore to Mineta to override the instructions from below to withhold landing slots.