It’s a heart-rending photo, and, unsurprisingly, it’s everywhere on the Internet. A tearful child wearing a life jacket, clutching a tiny puppy, adrift amidst the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene. It’s a searing image, and one that has sparked outrage every time it appears. And, apparently, it’s an AI-generated fake, and a reprehensible one at that.

A Forbes essay calls out the photo as not only fake, but actively harmful, asserting that it could “desensitize” observers, “chipping away” at their compassion and that it could promote “skepticism before all media.” But it’s an essay in Rolling Stone that gives the game away, complaining that the AI-generated image has been “used to attack the Biden-Harris administration over its response to Hurricane Helene.” (READ MORE from James H. McGee: Americans Can See Hope in Remembrance)

These are just a few examples of the progressive pearl-clutching that has surfaced in recent days. Apparently, there’s a growing realization that the administration’s response to the Helene tragedy has been almost ludicrously lame and that, if they fail to seize control of the narrative, Harris’ election chances might be mortally wounded.

One can share Ronald Reagan’s view that the scariest words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” or one can, with today’s Democrats, assume that more government is the solution to every ill. But all Americans, left or right, agree that disaster relief is a vital government function, and they further agree that, when disaster strikes, government incompetence — or worse — indifference, is completely unacceptable.

There Is Real Suffering

And yet here we are. Each passing day brings more evidence that, when it comes to the Helene disaster, Biden and Harris have been completely AWOL. Our own David Catron, among many others, has itemized the long list of things that reflect this administration’s abject unwillingness to deploy the resources of the federal government — resources that you and I, as American taxpayers, might have thought we’d paid for, to bring relief to the many thousands who are trapped without food, without warmth, without hope. He notes that FEMA now claims it lacks the funds necessary to accomplish what, after all, is its core mission.

Moreover, as Catron notes, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas emphatically denies that FEMA funds have been diverted to helping illegal immigrants, a denial that involves substantial legalistic hair-splitting and is utterly unconvincing.

We’re talking well north of a billion dollars, by the way — scarcely chump change. Similarly, Harris has specifically highlighted $157 million in additional humanitarian assistance to the people of Lebanon for “essential needs” such as “food, shelter, protection, and sanitation,” that is, precisely what thousands of people in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee so desperately need. Speaker Mike Johnson has patiently explained that the money is there. Besides, this is an administration perfectly willing to bend every fiscal rule to generate hundreds of billions in student loan forgiveness. 

Still, I don’t want to dwell further on the dollars and cents aspect of the situation, which Catron has so ably summarized. Instead, I want to call out the horrifying lack of urgency and leadership displayed by Biden and Harris in this desperate moment. I have many friends in the region, and every day they are sharing heartwarming stories of the efforts of ordinary people to bring assistance to people trapped in the mountain valleys.

Throughout the eastern U.S., churches and other volunteer groups are gathering truckloads of supplies and dispatching them as fast as the trucks can be loaded. Our own local Catholic church here in northern Virginia is right now filling a truck with food, shelter, and personal necessities, and this church is but one among hundreds.

But here’s the thing. When all of these trucks arrive at distribution points, the problem remains getting the goods they’ve delivered to the people most in need. I have friends who on their own initiative have organized backpacking teams to hike past the washed-out bridges and roads, carrying loads to places no longer accessible by vehicle.

One of the most marvelous stories that has emerged in recent days involves the work of a group of muleteers, who’ve deployed this most ancient form of transportation in the cause of delivering sustenance and health care items into the deepest reaches of the stricken region. And private owners of helicopters have done yeoman work to rescue trapped families — yes, including trapped families with small children and dogs, not AI-fantasies, but real people.

Where Is the Military?

While all of this is heartening, it invites some obvious questions, namely, where the military is in all of this. To the extent that military assets have been deployed, they’ve overwhelmingly been National Guard troops activated by state leaders, and their capabilities are limited.

Where are the active-duty military assets that Biden could put into play if he chose? Where are the military helicopters, where are the Blackhawks, where are the Chinooks? One or two Chinook loads equals the capacity of perhaps a dozen mule trains and hundreds of backpack volunteers.

In addition to these large cargo, where are the nimble scouts that can go into tight LZs? Currently, the rescue effort is crying out for such capability — where is the 160th Special Operations Aviation regiment, trained and equipped for this kind of activity?  Where are there MH-60 “Little Birds” in this hour of need? Where are the troops, young men and women accustomed by training to carrying heavy loads, capable of fanning out from the helicopter LZs to deliver supplies? Where are the medics? (READ MORE: Security Breach From Pearl Harbor to Butler PA)

Bridges are out and roads are cut across the region. Army engineers are very good at putting in emergency bridges. For that matter, where are the MPs, sadly needed at a time when, horrifically, we read of human predators invading the region to take advantage of the vulnerable. The commander-in chief could energize such a response with a single phone call, or, if he’s taking a nap or on an ice cream break, perhaps our sitting vice president could show some initiative in this regard.

We might expand these questions a bit further. We’ve just marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas. For much of the past year, college students across the country, above all the most privileged among them at our most prestigious institutions, have noisily complained about the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, about the need for food and medicine.

They’ve taken over swaths of many campuses, erecting tent cities, often with tents suspiciously identical, as if purchased at a single go with someone’s American Express Black Card. Strong young bodies, then, with access to significant funding. Have we seen them loading up their electric Rivian pickup trucks with food, or with tents, and driving south to help with the humanitarian crisis in Appalachia? The very notion is laughable — hillbillies don’t count, are undeserving of their sympathy, are in fact contemptible — Hillary Clinton’s deplorables. 

So forgive me if I can’t share Rolling Stone’s concern for an AI-generated image of a little girl and her puppy. The essence of the current disaster is that people are cut off from the star news photographers, even if, in this day and age, those stars could be bothered to trek into the back country where people are hurting the most.

More, in an era when we’ve become spoiled for the cell phone images, the amateur photos that document the major events as they take place around us. But in this disaster, cell phone coverage has proven to be one of the first things to disappear. Even so, a cursory search on the internet brings no shortage of heartbreaking images, and some of them involve children and dogs.

We might also remind ourselves that the Rolling Stone types and their privileged ilk were perfectly happy to promote pictures of “children in cages” as an indictment of Donald Trump’s border policies, only to be flummoxed when the pictures proved to have been taken during the Obama presidency. We need a little outrage right now — no, we need full-bore, red-hot, screaming outrage right now — and no one in charge should be able to hide behind complaints about fake news.

I’m also supremely indifferent to those who complain of the “politicization” of natural disasters. The Democrats were perfectly willing to politicize Hurricane Katrina. Such complaints are akin to calls for a “ceasefire” in Gaza, made by people who know full well that this only benefits one side, their side.

In this particular instance, I care not one whit about the electoral calculus involved. Every day the flyers land in our mailbox, touting the achievements of the “Biden–Harris” administration, but if the current incumbents wish to claim collective credit for what they’ve achieved in office, then by all rights they must take ownership of collective failures on their watch.

In responding to Helene, they’ve demonstrated an epic combination of indifference and incompetence. In the present crisis, I care less about changing voter opinion than about lighting a fire under these so-called leaders. People are suffering, people are dying. Half-assedness is completely unacceptable. (READ MORE: On America, Hochman Strikes the Nail on the Head)

I don’t know what it will take to overcome this lethargy at the top. Perhaps we might persuade the Israelis to bomb Asheville. Then we might see some motivation — maybe Biden would send in a thousand sailors and soldiers to “build a pier,” perhaps real humanitarian assistance would begin to flow. But for now it’s up to ordinary people to do their best for the victims. And if there is a political calculus to be found in all this, perhaps it lies in simply asking, “Do we want a leadership that cares about all Americans, not just the currently favored groups?” It’s a question worth asking as we go to the polls.

As Hurricane Milton came ashore last night, promising yet another round of appalling death and destruction, it appeared that Biden and Harris have gotten the message. No, not that message, not the message of an “all hands on deck” federal disaster response, bringing all the relevant military and civilian assets to bear. Instead, they’ve at least learned that a weekend in Delaware or a fundraiser in California isn’t a good look and they, and their willing allies in the mainstream media, are going out of their way to promote a message of concern for hurricane victims and promises that FEMA will “be there.” So now, at least, they’re talking the talk — one wonders if, even now, they’re prepared to walk the walk.

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.