Presence of Leaders,Celebrities in disaster zones..

Hi All,

I was reading the Paul Krugman column in today's Hindu and found that he had raised a valid point which resonated with me. He scorned the scheduled visit of John McCain to the areas ravaged by the tropical storm Gustav.

He stated that presence of leaders and celebrities would result in channeling of resources, energy and time from the victims, who obviously need it the most, to these people. He provided a couple of examples like the one where George bush visited the fire fighters who were helping out Katrina victims( just wondering... why are fire fighters involved in all this..isint it out of their purview..and aren't they always busy trying to put out the Californian wild fires that somehow seem to go on and on..)

I must also state that Paul is Bush basher and hence the article could be biased ( the "could" can be replaced with "should"). Moreover politicians wouldn't want to be seen as playing golf when millions are in distress and would obviously want to score brownie points by being in ground zero...

Now the challenge is what is the right solution to this predicament...hmmmm