38% said "no one is to blame."

How impressively cool-headed people are about absorbing tragedy. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken in the last two days.

13% said George W. Bush is "most responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane"; 18% said "federal agencies"; 25% said "state and local officials"; 38% said "no one is to blame"; 6% had no opinion. -- 29% said that "top officials in the federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired"; 63% said they should not; 8% had no opinion....

10% said George W. Bush has done a "great" job in "responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding"; 25% said "good"; 21% said "neither good nor bad"; 18% said "bad"; 24% said "terrible"; 2% had no opinion. -- 8% said federal government agencies responsible for handling emergencies have done a "great" job in "responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding"; 27% said "good"; 20% said "neither good nor bad"; 20% said "bad"; 22% said "terrible"; 3% had no opinion. -- 7% said state and local officials in Louisiana have done a "great" job in "responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding"; 30% said "good"; 23% said "neither good nor bad"; 20% said "bad"; 15% said "terrible"; 5% had no opinion.

So 31% put the blame on the federal level and 25% put it at the state/local level. Why do they break down the federal response into Bush and federal agencies and then aggregate the state and local numbers? I guess it's the usual obsession with what everything means for Bush's popularity. No one cares anywhere near as much about the political fortunes of a particular mayor and governor. Yet the actions at the state and city level were quite different, and it's important to think hard about which level of government to trust in various situations.

I like that ordinary people don't go for the demands that someone ought to be fired. We've heard a lot of demands of this kind in recent years, and they usually strike me as beside the point — political rhetoric heated up and served by the party out of power. The new person will have to struggle with the real world difficulties too, and he or she will have less experience. Meanwhile, there will be a superficial impression that action has been taken. And the party out of power can gloat. It's not surprising that Bush doesn't respond to that sort of thing. But it is quite nice that the average person perceives the nature of the political game and disengages.

UPDATE: I talk about more recent polls here.