I'm not going to underscore the horrible events in New Orleans for political gain the way the Left did with September 11th. That is, I won't say, "Yes, it's horrible about what happened to New Orleans but . . . ."

I make no excuses for the Bush administration on the complete meltdown of civic order in New Orleans. "Blade Runner" just became passé. We're in a very different nation-wide psychic and political turf right now. Just think of it. What is al Queda thinking now? "Hmm, Allah blesses us, through His divine wrath against the decadent city of New Orleans, with the knowledge that the Americans cannot respond to a civic emergency." I can just see them drooling.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has done more to change the political landscape since 9/11 itself. In political terms, Katrina is the "9/11" for the liberals/left. They respond more to it than they ever did to 9/11. August '05 New Orleans speaks to liberals in a way New York at 9/11 didn't, not because of locale but circumstance. The Bush-can-do-no-wrong Right is losing this one.

It is apparent that the government cannot be relied upon to protect us. We are in deep peril for at least three more years, years that are absolutely critical for the war against Muslim fascists. The very president who rightfully went to war with the Islamists forgot to fortify your fort at home. No matter how sophisticated we are these days, we still need to "fortify" our defenses especially when we are vulnerable. By all means be pro-active. Kill terrorists. But also don't forget the business that needs to be done at home. Protect civilians. Doing that, you will be better situated to handle NATURAL CATASTROPHES. None of this sits well with me but there it is.

Already the Republicans want to play things down in terms of political damage. Can you blame them? This is the worst PR disaster for Bush and I mean that clearly recognizing that his fate is of no concern of mine unlike that of those who are now drowning or have drowned due to lack of planning, of foresight, under-funding, and complete lack of leadership.

If the government were ever to have a job, it would be responding to disasters, both natural and man-made. It is precisely the kind of thing the government is for. Cleaning up a disaster this big requires the government to take over and assign tasks to the private sector. ESPECIALLY IN A TIME OF WAR.

Period.

But, where is the government infrastructure for this? In what arena of incompetence do these resources reside to make them unavailable, and still, to those who are now dying or going to die?

Katrina is the phoenix from which political correctness has been reborn. Who would dare deny that TV focus on downtown New Orleans include predominately black faces? Yet poor whites suffer just as much outside the city, but because they are in the uninteresting suburbs and not in downtown New Orleans itself, are ignored. So, while poor people drown, we have to fix "race" before addressing the underlying roots of poverty, both on the personal (conservative) and policy (liberal) sides of the debate. And that should set us back, oh, I would say, at least, half a century.

Katrina is so huge I can even feel the glee of liberals who have finally gotten their chance even as water enters the lungs of more hapless New Orleans citizens. My liberal friends are aquiver. They smell blood and the stench is from the Big Easy. Vultures encircle what is left of Bush's credibility. It is the same, really, as having oral pleasure by someone not your wife in the Oval Office. The "I did not have sex with that woman" moment for Bush which, above all, and despite all obvious protestations to the contrary, proves that both he and Clinton belong to the same useless generation of post-war (meaning WWII) America.

It is a puerile generation devoted to quick fixes and unreliable decisions. The last great president belonged to my parent's generation. Our generation has yet to produce one. Don't hold your breath. Both Clinton and Bush had a vision, one ad hoc and the other inspired after 9/11, but both exhibit the very poor presidential leadership we have had, conservative and liberal, for almost 20 years. The failure of leadership in a democracy, however, is the fault of its people.

America is weak at home and getting weaker abroad through inadequate distribution of resources, such as in Iraq and New Orleans, to name two small examples. In the meantime, China is buying oil fields in Central Asia. So, uh, guess who's taking who to the cleaners . . . ?