Just a few days after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman crowed triumphantly about the federal government’s response to the disaster. “[A]fter Katrina the government seemed to have no idea what it was doing; this time it did. And that’s no accident: the federal government’s ability to respond effectively to disaster always collapses when antigovernment Republicans hold the White House, and always recovers when Democrats take it back.”

What a fairy tale. Mature adults understand that earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters are an unfortunate fact of life. They further know that government agencies are, by their very nature, slow and lumbering animals.