Let Them Eat Cake

While millions endured the wrath of Katrina, which may turn out to be the worst natural disaster in US history, our leader was having a good time in bone-dry Arizona. The cake was not actually his disaster recovery plan, but for all the leadership he's showing, it could have been.

At least now we know how W's managed to get such die-hard support from the supposedly "maverick" John McCain: he never forgets to bring a birthday cake for him.

This morning, as the nation is discovering just what the dawn revealed in the Gulf states, he was in California, making a speech nonsensically comparing WWII and our current efforts in Iraq (which I guess it was important to make on this specific day, it now being two weeks after the anniversary of V-J Day.) However, by later in the morning, someone managed to communicate to him that he might want to go back to Washington to monitor federal relief efforts, and maybe even arrange a visit to the disaster area. There is no truth to the rumor, as suggested by one blogger, that they got him to drop everything and head back to Washington by telling him the hurricane was named "Terri."

For an administration that talks about being resolute, and the importance of sending the right message, and compassionate leadership, it does seem odd that they couldn't have figured out a way to get the President in a helicopter over New Orleans or Biloxi this morning. (Heck, he could have ridden with the Fox News guy.) Maybe that would have been too Clintonian.

In a few days, maybe we'll seem him handing out water bottles at a relief center somewhere inland, to a pre-selected audience of storm refugees who have signed loyalty oaths to get in.