"Now Watch This Drive."

There are so many more stories and columns on the Bush maladministration's too-little, too-late response to the disaster in the Gulf that I hardly know where to begin. It seems that quite a few folks out there are observing just how Preznit Miserable Failure is coming up small again in a time of national crisis. In 2001, it was the Pet Goat story and jetting around the country like a coward on the run while thousands were dead and dying in New York and Washington DC; this time it's attending fund-raisers and eating birthday cake and playing the guitar while people are displaced and dying along the Gulf Coast. In any event, though, unless it involves appearing before hand-picked crowds of adoring Moron-Americans, killing foreigners or enriching Halliburton and other already-wealthy cronies of his, Preznit Can't Find His Ass With Both Hands And A Flashlight just doesn't have the right stuff. He's incompetent, inarticulate and inept.

For instance, here's Greg Palast on the subject:

The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.

He played golf. Good to know that little things like thousands dead and dying and up to a million or more people left homeless by a hurricane can't interfere with his pursuit of physical fitness and breaking par.

On today's SF Chronicle editorial page, John M. Curtis also has some choice words for the Bungler in Chief:

Like the South Asian tsunami, there's unspeakable pain and tragedy watching human beings crushed by unstoppable earthly events. Hurricane Katrina must alert Washington to the necessity of controlling disasters. Squandering human lives and resources on avoidable military adventures shows disregard for the all-out effort needed to fight natural disasters.

There's another, somewhat related article on the same page by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, and then, next to those two, is a predictably tin-eared and wrong-headed screed by notorious Bush-apologist and lesser intellectual light Debra J. Saunders, in which she accuses those of us who have the temerity to point fingers at her beloved leader in this time of crisis and poor response to it of being simply "Bush-bashers." (Oh, heaven forfend!) Being a charter member of the Cult of Dubya, she defends his inaction even in the face of mounting evidence against him, and creates enough straw men to populate every cornfield in Kansas.

In addition to these columns, there are excellent pieces on the subject out there by Molly Ivins, Norman Solomon, Howell Raines, Andrew Gumbel and Paul Krugman (Krugman's piece can also be found here.). I suggest you check them out -- but be sure to have a strong drink or some blood pressure medication nearby when you do.