Randy Newman -- Baltimore

OK. If there was any doubt that Bush is a "war president" and most assuredly not a "disaster president" we now have his most assured move post-Katrina: A Day of Prayer. When I heard him talk about us being a nation that prays, at first I thought he was saying "We are a nation that preys" and it made a lot more sense. I don't think we need to be reminded to pray. And I don't think we need Clinton and Bush Sr to remind us to donate money. We need the differnt parts of our government to function as a government. But it's awfully hard for the goverments that make up the most powerful country in history to act like it, because our elected officials are mostly idiots who are more afraid of appearing to look "socialist" than they are of thousands of dead American men, women, and little children. We live in a country where "government" is a dirty word, and we are told that corporations can do everything governments can do better, cheaper. And then comes Katrina to show us that perhaps we need government and infrastructure and a measure of central planning and control after all. But the concept is foreign to everyone in Bush's administration.

I love how Cheney is impressed by the recovery effort. You know, I don't give a crap what else happens--- on this one test alone we fail utterly in our claims to be a great nation -- the literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead bodies left unclaimed and disrespected. We are a country that spends millions of dollars each year to send archeologists into Vietnam, Cambodia, and other places in an effort to locate and retrieve the bodies of MIA pilots and soldiers missing for over forty years. Here we have the bodies right there, right now. But we do not have the planning and the will to honor those who died with proper respect.

Anyway.