Because of his own incompetence re Katrina, Bush has no problem using our taxpayer money ($200+ bil.) to revive his sorry-ass image. Just classic.

On his long walk across the fake turf in New Orleans to give his highly-staged speech, Bush must've quickly grabbed a memo from the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Look for many of the supposed solutions to NO's woes to come from this "think" tank. Apparently, it's been cranking out numerous proposals and of course Bush/Rove have been listening. My favorite: in an area that is a toxic stew of chemicals, sewage, and other poisons, the HF urges the suspension of environmental regulations.

As he did with 9/11, Bush is stiffly opposing the creation of an independent panel to look into the mistakes made with Katrina, instead favoring a GOP-led inquiry body. Once again, imagine the GOP's reaction if Clinton did this -- amazing.

More outrageous gall: Bush installs Karl Rove as the person in charge of the reconstruction effort in New Orleans. Forget the fact that Rove should've been fired due to the Plame outing, what credentials does Rove have to lead this effort? The only thing he's ever reconstructed is GW's image -- over and over and over again. Look for incredible staged imagery and billions of our dollars handed over to Friends of George.

Frank Rich has been churning out one excellent column after another of late. One reason why: he's f*cking angry!

Example:

The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.

Yup, Katrina allowed the public to (finally!) see that the emperor had no clothes.

He offers us a hint of what we can expect from Rove now in charge:

Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.

It will certainly be style over substance. Hopefully the public has finally spit up the Kool-Aid and will see through all the superficial bullsh*t (midnight flight re Schiavo, flak suit on aircraft carrier, etc.).

Rich sums it up:

What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.

Here, here!