You'd think it should start getting better soon. New Orleans is evacuated, for the most part. The terrible pictures of people living in filth and dying in squalor are gone. I expected the pictures to get better, the stories to shift, ever so slowly, towards reconstruction. How wrong I was. Now the eyes of the media are shifting to the outlying towns - to St Bernard Parish and smaller towns in Louisiana and Mississippi...places that have yet to see FEMA and federal aid. Once again, I find myself unable to get my mind around these things. I'm beyond yelling. Ok, we knew already that the Bush regime was uncaring. They gutted FEMA for political and ideological reasons. But why are people still drowning in their homes? How long does it take to do something? How can bureaucracy be this hidebound and heartless?

Ok, so I am wrong. I thought I was beyond blaming things. George Wills says that this strikes at Bush's strength, at the perception that he is decisive. It's incomprehensible to me that Bush could be seen as decisive, after 9-11, when he dithered and then abandoned his post and ran and hid...but that's beside the point. For whatever reason, people saw Bush as decisive. Up until now. I still believe in the Republican spin machine and it's ability to fool people who want to be fooled. But I can hope that it opens people's eyes to the type or person they have for a President.