Just Not Lucky

If you weren't watching this week's 'Real Time With Bill Maher' on HBO you missed one of the most concise, scathing indictments of George W. Bush's presidency I've seen or heard. Maher begins by calling for a recall election, a la California's ouster of Gray Davis, and finishes up with this masterful bon mot:

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint."

I've said repeatedly that it's difficult to lay the blame on one person, regardless of how fun it is to try. There's equal parts to look at -- Mike Brown at FEMA, Mike Chertoff at Homeland Security, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, as well as the vacationin' Dubya. My question is this: after September 11, 2001, when the Bush Administration rolled out the PATRIOT Act and made the Department of Homeland Security one of the top-level agencies in the chain, wasn't this sort of inaction supposed to be addressed?