my friend Leonard is well deserving of a MacArthur Grant: [link]

This made me snort water up my nose:

Do not steal a policeman's badge, hat, and squad car and then drive around the French Quarter blaring the sirens and yelling "WHOOT! WHOOT! I AM THE MAYOR OF AQUATOWN, OBEY MY COMMANDS!". Sure, it would be funny, but it is wrong.

I'll agree with you Allyson - I'd rather see Bush call in Clinton to help with those aspects of the disaster that he will be more effective responding to than go it alone and twist in the wind, regardless of how personally satisfying the latter outcome might be. What's most important is doing the best job possible to get help to the hurricane refugees.

Even calling on his geriatric father for help is comforting in a way. Whatever I may have thought about George H. Bush's degree of connection to the common man, I never supposed that he was anything less than brilliant and highly capable.

I know I sound like a Bush apologist, I'm really not, I swear.

Nah, you're just what msbelle 'accused' you of. And you take the time to post. Which I appreciate.

In light of how distressingly slow and clunky the evac is going, I'm thinking I ought go learn how to make fire with sticks and squeeze water from stones and live off urban vegetation now. Uhg. Well, if I lived in a disaster-prone area, anyway.

see, Allyson, that doesn't even sound partisan to me. That sounds like your opinion on two men. Partisan would be more like:

I am glad he tapped Clinton for teh fundraising, because no Republican is capable of having emotions and comforting people.

Bush is incapable of it unless it is written and rehearsed several times, and even then it's sketchy.

C'mon, Bush apparently thinks the appropriate response is a well-reported clenching of his fist and saying something to the effect that it must be doubly hard to be down in the water. Really? As hard as it is to be rich, white, silver-spooned, and the President of the United States, it's all of twice as hard to be poor, black, cut off from basic human needs, and living in an anarchic swamp? Man, now that's hard.

I think the Daddy Bush + Clinton combo is brilliant, and I'm sure they'll be doing all of this kind of thing for the foreseeable future.

I hope it sticks - I feel a LOT more secure with Bush Sr. and Clinton calling shots than with Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

I'm kind a surprised Jimmy Carter hasn't shown up with his tool box yet.

Even calling on his geriatric father for help is comforting in a way. Whatever I may have thought about George H. Bush's degree of connection to the common man, I never supposed that he was anything less than brilliant and highly capable.

I don't think the father is brilliant, but I do think he's intelligent, capable, and more of a politician including those senses of the word that aren't an indictment of character, but more of a compliment.

Where Clinton is concerned, Allyson speaks for me. He is still very much my President.

My Out of Office message is on and my boarding passes are printed. I'm off to collect my luggage and do a "what did I forget?!" spin around the house, and then I'm off to meet up with Dana at Dragon*Con.

Bye!