“What is highly surprising now is the disintegration of the administration’s mask of competence and confidence, as New Orleans sinks day by day into squalor and savagery, a shocking panorama of unrelieved human suffering.” – Camille Paglia, today. Surprising? Well, I guess their mask has now slipped. I should clarify my comments of the last couple days. None of this is good news. The death toll because of the administration’s incompetence is a human tragedy. At a deeper level, as a believer that we have to win in Iraq, I worry that the public’s trust in anything this administration says about reality may soon disappear altogether. The will we need to persevere in Iraq depends to some extent on trust in the administration. The trust, already battered, may now collapse. This calamity happened in a region where support for the president was relatively strong. It benefits none of us – least of all the beleaguered Iraqis – that this has happened and is still happening. But we know now at least how the citizens of Iraq must feel – besieged, bereft of sufficient security, and reassured by smug Bush administration pabulum. They’re on their own, just as surely as the remaining citizens of New Orleans were left to fend for themselves. But, hey, stuff happens, doesn’t it?
THE ANTI-REAGAN: Jon Rauch discovers the true radicalism of Rick Santorum: an attack on the entire Reaganite belief in individual freedom.
The Dish 