(written Sunday, April 11)

Sometimes, the more things change the more they stay the same. As we prepare for tonight’s premier of the much heralded HBO series Treme, political blogs were buzzing this past week with the continuing failure of the GOP to deal seriously with the many issues raised by Hurricane Katrina.

This past week the Southern Republican Leadership Conference held its meetings in New Orleans, with a long list of top Republican speakers and attendees. According to Ben Smith, a blogger for politico.com, discussion of Katrina and its legacy were conspicuously absent for most of the conference. Here is a brief excerpt from Smith’s April 9th posting:

“A South Carolina delegate, Maryann Riley, mentioned to a New Orleans Republican that she’d been on a tour of the remaining devastation that morning. “‘Oh — why did you do that?’ asked Kim Hasney, the New Orleans GOP activist sitting next to her. ‘We are so over Katrina — move on.’ Hasney said she was pleased the SRLC hadn’t focused on the topic. ‘This city is so magnificent…We won the Superbowl. It’s been five years, and we have come out on top,’ she said. ‘Let’s get past Katrina.’

This is why the production of Treme is so exciting. The 24 hour news cycle and obsession with pop-culture, and even the way History is taught in many schools, have given too many Americans a short memory. As time marches on and the microscope is less frequently focused on the realities of daily life in New Orleans, the national consciousness is ever more susceptible to the thinking of people like Ms. Hasney.

While it would be unfair to expect Treme to tell the full story of New Orleans, it will certainly serve as a powerful reminder that recovery and rebuilding is about much more than new buildings, charter schools, and a Super Bowl win. The reviews indicate that Treme, much like David Simon’s previous work The Wire, will grapple with the real social and economic problems of New Orleans residents. This is important, because while I am indeed amazed at the resiliency of so many New Orleans residents since Katrina, we cannot forget the bureaucratic nightmares and government failures that made a terrible storm even more deadly.