The blame game imo can be directed at .....at least a couple of past administations for not rebuilding and improving the levee system. And the current administration for reducing the budgets for natural disaster intervention and rescue. For diverting a good chunk of that budget to Iraq, for ignoring reports for the last 4-5 years about a hurricanes potential for destroying NO. For merging all the specific natural disaster /rescue branches into homeland security and obviously weakening them and their effectiveness in the process. I think that local branches of government are resposible for their part as well but face it, the shit slides uphill as far as blame goes...The hurricane has also laid bare the ills of current society imo...it took three days to strip the veneer of civility from New Orleans. Lets hope for the best....