Gonzo and Billary

The long overdue resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was followed by a pro forma speech of regret by his Fearless Leader, President Bush. Bush said absolutely nothing about the obvious reasons for Gonzo's departure--his lying, his cluelessness, his badgering of an ailing John Ashcroft to help subvert the Bill of Rights--deciding instead to blame politics for the situation that brought his departure. Well, in a way he was right. It was politics that got him into the mess in the first place. Bush, still teetering in rhetorical ineptitude since Rove (purportedly) left the White House, was coming off his bizarre recasting of history by equating Iraq and Vietnam, not as awful morasses but as examples of the egregious bloodletting that would transpire once we abandon our mission there.

Nothing, of course, about the destruction and slaughter that ensued, in both cases, from our ill-advised adventuresome incursions, but let's let that pass. Bush's credibility among all but Ann Coulter, Dennis Miller and the Veterans of Foreign Wars is at a laughably low level. As for Gonzo, the failure is emblematic of the basic problem undermining all of Bush's appointments. He has always valued loyalty over competence. Now loyalty, per se, is not an objectionable trait. The problem is that for a person to be unquestioningly loyal to an executive who is narrow, stubborn, totally devoid of historical sense, and a champion of ignorance means that the appointee must generally share those traits, or are able to cynically suppress them for venial political advantage. Ergo we have the Harriett Myers, the Brownies, the Gonzos, ad infinitum.

What an administration! Still sixteen months to go, and the economy is beginning to crumble along with our infrastructure.

Meanwhile a brief encounter I had with a neighbor clued me into a likely reality for 2008. It was a loud political discussion, but not because we disagreed (though we did), but because the other fellow was 80 per cent deaf, so we had to yell at each other across the lawn on wich we were walking our dogs. The old man initiated the talk, asking me who would be the 2008 President. It was a tough question--the field is certainly wide open--but in the end I posited that Barack would win, because he's the only fresh face to emerge from the pack, like Clinton and Carter, and most likely to generate popular excitement. The Old Man--I'll call him Dick, since that is his name--pooh-poohed me. So I challenged him, a Republican who has voiced objections about Bush, if he would ever vote for Hillary.

"I would vote for Hillary" he yelled at me, "Because it would be like voting for Bill Clinton." Apparently he'd forgiven Clinton his trespasses and is nostalgic for some return to competence.
I've understood that Hillary's not-so-secret asset, besides her penetrating intelligence, is her husband. It's hard to gauge how important Bill's presence will be in a general election. There are the hard-core conservative who hate them both no matter what, and they'd vote Republican anyway. Then there are the moderate Republicans who see Hillary as the most conservative of the Democrats, and the default choice because she would be the most defeatable Democrat if she won the nomination, and the least liberal if she were to ascend to the White House.

My acquaintance Dick is stodgy, half-witted and barely competent, and as such is a worthy representative of the American voter. If he wants to return to the ' 90s (and who doesn't, except for I-Phone users), then perhaps he reflects a larger emotional reservoir of nostalgia that could vault Hillary into office. Up to now I could not believe that our electorate was sophisticated enough to look beyond her gender. But if they believe that Bill is returning--just as many believed that Bush I would simply be a Reagan redux--then the Billary ticket could be very hard to beat.

Rock 'n' Roll High School

When, several years ago, some junior exec at Disney green-lighted a project with the back-to-basics moniker "High School Musical" I'm certain that he/she had no expectation at all that it would launch a franchise and one of the least likely cultural phenomena of the Oughties. The original production, airing on Disney's basic cable channel--not even on ABC Family or the parent ABC network--somehow struck a chord with the masses of teens and tweens not only on this side of the Atlantic but throughout the world. Its album of nouveau bubble-gum rock became the hottest selling of the year. It spawned an immediate sequel with the equally imaginative title "High School Musical 2," which on its airing last week, became the highest rated basic cable program ever, or something. Now more people have seen the pair than, probably, have read Shakespeare.

Which begs the question, "What in hell is going on?"

I'm not the only one to ask that. I was listening to an NPR movie-review program last Friday, the day "HSM2" premiered world-wide, and the critics were seriously trying to analyze the enormous popularity and What It Meant. Is this a middle-class phenomenon?" posed one sociologically. It certainly was not a musical or an artistic one. Commercial for sure. There was a tremulousness to the discussion, however, as though the analysts were fearful that this could indeed signal a retrograde Return to the Musical as an accepted popular genre, and not something to sneer at as terminally uncool.

As though that would be a bad thing. Perhaps the positive receptivity to an unchallenging, aggressively wholesome musical drama is some kind of reaction to the Hip Hop and Rap that has dominated the CD charts and Ipod downloads of the past twenty years. Or it is an outgrowth of MTV and its satellites as kids discover that yes, videos can be expanded and combined to form stories? Eureka. But are kids' aesthetic perceptions and judgments to be taken at all seriously? These are the folks who kept Sanjaya Malakar on the airwaves for tedious months on end.

I am embarrassed to admit that I am one of the few over-50s without children to have actually watched both programs. The original was a head-scratcher, and the sequel--which received very good reviews--was barely viewable, and I made it through only because I'd DVRed it and could watch it in snippets. Continuity was never an actual issue to the marketers, who provided long commercial interruptions and fourth-wall breaking visits with the cast as part of the televised package. I have no retention of the original "HSM" and thought the sequel was hardly Pulitzer material. The songs, except for an opening toe-tapping ensemble number and a pretty ballad "You Are the Music in Me" were completely forgettable. The choreography was lively but the story was Disneyesque pap. The performing kids were quite impressive, however, reminding us how Disney's can successfully mine young talent. A generation ago they brought in teens Christine Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling. Now there's Zac Efron, whose future is admirable and whose present, including a fine performance in "Hairspray," is the envy of anyone who's ever auditioned for "American Idol."

All this is a nice circumstance for the Disney Corp, its stockholders, and anyone connected with "HSM," but I don't see this as some kind of watershed event in the history of musical drama. It was simply an extension of the fact that the musical and the innocence of the high school experience meld together very successfully. Many of the most commercially successful, and enduring musicals or our time have emerged from this milieu, among them "Bye Bye Birdie," "Grease," "Hairspray," and even the best American musical of all time--that's right, "West Side Story." Okay, it was darker, but it had its dance at the gym like the rest of its ilk. Perhaps something of the simplicity and clarity of the high school experience, with its stock characters and innocent yearnings work well with the bizarre conventions of kids bursting out into songs at the slightest whim.

Actually a better signal that the musical may be reviving is the success of "Hairspray," still with legs at the cineplexes. It could be that it benefited from the coattails of "HSM" and drew the teenyboppers to the cinema to see Zac Efron. Or it could be that it was simply a terrific adaptation of an off-beat but well-conceived vehicle that emerged, originally, from the warped mind of John Waters. "Hairspray" is easily the most entertaining movie of the summer, and musically is so far ahead of "HSM"--or most of what Broadway has turned out since Sondheim went into semi-retirement. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's score is a marvelous pastiche of early-60s pop, recalling every type of song that I danced to, but doing them far better. These guys are not one-shot wonders, either. They wrote the score for "South Park the
Movie," which elevated that cartoon to one of the best animated movies ever, and included the funniest--and dirtiest--song ever to hit the silver screen, "Uncle Fucker." The lyrics for "Hairspray" are not as raunchy but they are suitably subversive when needed, and to keep the adults satisfied.

Disney will not be providing downloads of songs like "Uncle Fucker," but they do have "High School Musical 3" already in the works, but for a more elaborate and hopefully profitable theatrical release. By that time, perhaps the excitement will die down (though it didn't for "Pirates of the Caribbean 3"). Whether there will be a groundswell of production for more musical films is still problematic. The revival of the musical could be a tiny blip on the cultural landscape, and we'll see if it can survive the upcoming release of "Sweeney Todd," with Johnny Depp as the murderous operatic barber.

Off-Net

Summer television, in the past, could have been likened to an arid patch within a vast wasteland, but that was when there were only three networks and UHF. If you weren't a baseball fan, there were network reruns and nothing much else. The landscape has changed radically in a few decades, and ironically, there are only a smattering of reruns being broadcast by the major nets during the summer. They now do that during the winter. Instead the nets have thrown what little money they can at budget-conscious reality and game shows, and have pretty much lost me completely. After the long and unsatisfying haul of "American Idol" I cannot abide any more talent-competitions-with-three-judge panels. I have tried to sit through the awkward "On the Lot," with the boobilicious hostess, whose breasts are more memorable than anything the would-be directors concoct each week. And the only adventure reality show that piqued any interest, the "Pirate Master" cousin of "Survivor", fared so badly that CBS relegated it to its on-line site.

But with all of that I have been busy programming by DVR with a slew of off-beat and interesting series that are being produced by the more audacious pay and basic-cable channels. This not only includes the annual offerings by HBO and Showtime like "Weeds" (excellent) and "Entourage" (lacking in conflict but tolerable because of Jeremy Piven), but intriguing and involving hour-longs such as "Eureka," "The Dead Zone," "The 4400," "Mad Men" and the miniseries "The Company" and "The Bronx is Burning". I have not even included well-done fare such as "Damages," an intense legal drama with Glenn Close as a dog-killing attorney. It is the dog-killing--a tactical act to gain the support of a recalcitrant witness--that cut me off emotionally from the show. Cannot abide a character who'd do that, so I'll have to pass up the experience of good storytelling therein.

"Mad Men" is a production of AMC, who alienated us all by starting to insert commercial breaks in their movie telecasts. This show almost makes up for it. Like "Damages" it has few sympathetic characters, but its portrayals of casual sexism and racism in the New York City of 1960 is dead-on authentic, even down to the sounds emanating from the black-and-white TVs. It is written and produced primarily by a former "Sopranos" scribe who penned the pilot as a spec many years ago. Good for him. I hope he can carry this show through the entire decade---there will be a lot of changes to experience.

I've been satisfying my sci-fi appetite for years with the inconsistent but intriguing "Dead Zone" and "4400," though I get the feeling the staffs are struggling to find an end-game to their story arcs. "The Dead Zone" was an excellent Stephen King novel and a fine David Cronenberg film with a complete story line that ended with the protagonists sacrificial death. That's not likely to happen as long as the protagonist is played by the executive producer Anthony Michael Hall. "The 4400" started as an alien abduction mystery but has transmogrified into a quasi-"Heroes" series about the effects of superpowers arbitrarily obtained by characters through a vaccination of a potentially fatal concoction called "Promycin." This does provide a wealth of episodic story lines, but I'm wondering if, with "Heroes," "X-Men" and "4400," this well is being tapped too rigorously.

Less pretentious is the comedy-drama "Eureka," set in a town of geniuses funded by the Powers That Be. It's refreshing to see a show about intelligent people, and the audience surrogate hero, played by Colin Ferguson as the sheriff whose IQ is only 111, is an amiable chap. The playful tone of the show, with an underlying frisson suggesting dire powers that could overwhelm Creation, produces a satisfying blend of tones.

But nothing could be as satisfying to me as the first ESPN miniseries "The Bronx Is Burning." Despite flaws in its storytelling--its involvement with the Son of Sam case, the blackout, and the mayoral race of 1977--its emphasis on the Yankee Championship season, their first since 1962--evoked delightful memories for this Yankee fan and serves as a palliative for the struggling team that is grasping for play-off contention this season. How nice to relive the intense pennant play-off with Kansas City, and I just can't wait to see Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson slam those three homers against the Dodgers in the decisive Game Six. The depictions of Yankee characters range in skill and authenticity. Oliver Platt seems a bit too buffoonish for George Steinbrenner, but John Turturro's Billy Martin is right on, despite the distracting Vulcan ears. Sunjata's Reggie Jackson is a little slick (though it's always fun for me to see a portrayal of somebody I actually know). There are two underrated performances here that are worth mentioning. Joe Grifasi does not resemble Yogi Berra so much, but his vocal rendition is astoundingly authentic. And Erik Jensen's Thurman Munson is so dead-on that he seems to have been resurrected, and it almost chokes me up. But what's with Alan Ruck and his awful hair? There's a career that's gone nowhere fast since Ferris Bueller had his day off.

Oh--while on the subject--I just read Terry's request for a comment about Phil Rizzuto. Yeah. I listened to and watched him for so many years as a young Yankee fan. I do not know if he was a class act or not, but I did briefly exchange words with him. It was between games of a doubleheader at the Stadium, maybe around 1961 or so, and a friend and I sitting behind him noticed him alone in the broadcast booth. We asked him for an autograph and he replied "After the game." We never got it. He is forgiven.

Still Cheating After All These Years

They're at it again. The people who brought you the Florida Chad Mess, the Supreme Court Debacle and the Ohio Ballot Stuffing are now trying to steal the upcoming election by the innocent sounding "Proportional Electoral System," which a local California Republican is trying to shove down the voters' throats come next June's primary. According to this proposition--which is likely to gain a place on the ballot because, well, there are enough zanies in California to sign anything--the electoral votes in California's upcoming presidential vote will be awarded according to which candidate wins each individual congressional district. The result of this supposedly democratic reform would be to split the humongous 55-electoral vote pie in some proportional way that even a losing Republican (a sure thing in 2008) would receive maybe 20 of those votes. In a tight election, like the past two, that could easily provide a winning margin even if the Dems pick off a few western states like New Mexico and Colorado.

To be fair, there are idealistic reasons for proportional sharing, as inexact as that would be. But only if every state in the nation were to do that. Currently a few do, and the Democrats in North Carolina are trying to pull the same trick (as most politicos are ethically challenged). But three or four votes out of North Carolina's share would be insignificant compared to chopping up the prize of California, upon which Democratic hopes depend.

Now I admit to a partisan interest in the defeat of such a proposition in California. I expect that come next June, with the Presidential candidates decided and the campaign heating up, that this provision will get quite a lot of attention. Republicans will innocently cry "fairness!" and the Democrats will respond with "What will they think if next to steal the election?" Stridency aside, I expect that the electorate will probably be prone to listen to the Democrats after the Republicans have so bungled the century so far. It will be a very loud and expensive campaign, with a lot of Democratic money--including some of mine, I project--going toward the defeat of the proposition lest it allow the Republicans to maintain the White House through this back door move. In fact, the columns and bloggers and periodicals are already trumpeting this issue, so it won't fall on deaf ears or California apathy.

This kind of maneuvering, as potentially harmful as it is, is simply an offshoot of the appalling Electoral system that brought us the ascendancy of George Bush in 2000, even though he lost the popular vote by a considerable margin of half a million votes. Since no politicians have the guts to simply listen to the Vox Populi and try to constitutionally change the Presidential voting system, these kinds of end-around manipulations will pop up all the time. The presumption that aborts this process is that enough small states with tiny electoral input would veto the amendment because then they would receive fewer visits from candidates--as though that would be a bad thing. Okay, and maybe secure fewer promises of pork from those same candidates. It would just take 16 noes from little legislatures.

Some of those same legislatures are trying another intriguing tack, which would be to throw all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote, regardless of who wins in that individual state. That seems a little fairer, but would, as in the case of the California concept, have to be accepted by a critical mass of, say, least thirteen other states who would agree to do the same thing. Well, good luck on that. Adjacent states can't even agree on which vegetables are safe, or at what age their young people can start legally poisoning their livers with alcohol.

In other Endless Campaign news, the most interesting development is that Hillary Clinton is actually gaining adherents and is pulling away from the attractive though somewhat specious candidacy of Barack Obama. There is a perception now that her White House advocacy experience, plus her successful run as senator, have provided her with the only impressive resume of all the Presidential hopefuls. I've gleaned this not only from the columns and poll results, but from a comment by a close relative, a recently staunch (and somewhat apologetic) Neocon Republican, who opined that she was the best of all the Democratic candidates, and probably more capable than any current Republicans. And I think that included the shadow candidate/actor Fred Thompson. Fred (much as I'd love to have a President with that first name) is wise to stay in the shadows, for the media scrutiny on him will be intense, and the bubble is likely to burst on the Reaganesque image his proponents are spouting.

Hillary, on the other hand, has been through the gauntlet, having fought through the mud sloshed in her direction for two decades. There is little than can be said about her that will shock her friends or convert her enemies, so her profile will remain pretty stable. Plus there is the regret factor that Bill was so badly treated by the Impeachers, who felt that a sexual escapade or three or four were somehow more detrimental to the Constitution and our National Health than the desecrations that Bush and Cheney have regularly vomited forth. Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had sucked up our rights to privacy, waged pre-emptive wars for falsified reasons, condemned millions to die early by prohibiting promising medical research, lobbied for the Usefulness of the Dark Side, legitimized torture, and shot a friend in the face? Okay, the friend was a lawyer, but still.

The Republican activists understand the problematic scenario for 2008, which accounts for the electoral ploys. Changing the rules in the middle of the game as has worked so well for them, as has the Swift Boating, that the manipulations have just started to emerge. Look out.

The Runs of August

This has been an entertaining baseball season, and as we vault into the August stretch period the competitive division races must take an obvious backseat to the spectacle of Barry Bonds' assault on Hank Aaron's home run record. I remember viewing Aaron's 715th homer off Al Downing in 1974, and Mark McGwire's shot in 1998 overtaking Roger Maris. Like for all fans there is nearly a spiritual significance of breaking home run records that compels one to witness. Last week I made every effort to view Bonds' at bats, as well as Arod's as he tried for number 500 in his career. For six days I watched, then on Saturday could not view either event, because of a blackout of the Yankee game and an evening out. Of course it was then that both milestones, Arod's 500 and Bonds' matching of Aaron's 755, were met. Sigh. But I'll be viewing tonight as Bonds returns to San Francisco. Luckily there's nothing else on TV.

I'm tired of all the breast-beating over Bonds' steroid use. Yeah, yeah, it's cheating, sure, but the issue has become about as boring as Lindsay Lohan's latest DUI. Without steroids Bonds probably would not be at this point, but it is also conceivable that he would have reached the record anyway in a year or two. Besides he's had far fewer ABs than Aaron did, so comparisons, being odious, can go on forever. Bonds is obnoxious, sure, but aren't most ball players? Anyway, Arod is likely to pass him in six years or so, and then look out for Ryan Howard.

Back to the season, which is two-thirds over now, with terrifically tight races in all but one division. That is the AL East, where the Red Sox have maintained their sizable lead over the Yanks and Blue Jays. The margin is likely to persist because of shrewed pitching moves. Schilling is returning, Dice-K has been decent, but the relief troika of Okajima, Papelbon and the newly acquired Eric Gagne should preserve most late inning leads.

I had my doubts earlier but it seems the Yanks have righted the ship sufficiently to sneak in as a Wild Card. They have sailed through the easy section of their schedule and have caught up to the other Wild Card contenders, the Indians, Mariners and Tigers. If the Yanks can navigate through the upcoming turbulence of eight games with Detroit and three with Cleveland and Los Angeles with a split, they will be in good shape. The rest of the season will be against Eastern teams, while Detroit and Cleveland must face each other, a possibly resurgent Twins, and the frustrated but talented White Sox. Seattle is the wild card in the Wild Card, but the Yankees' pitching has gelled, and the additions of Betemit, Duncan and Giambi have fortified the bench.

It's too tight to call the winner of the Central Division, but the Tigers still seem to have the strongest team, and need to bolster their bullpen a bit to recover. Their current slump is an anomaly and they will be back soon. Cleveland's starting pitching is suspect, with Lee and Sowers big disappointments. And don't count out the Twins, whose starters Garza and Baker may be maturing quickly enough to support Santana et al. And the Twins are historically a great second-half team.

Oakland is also set for a surge, but it won't be enough to overcome the Angels, despite some pitching hiccups, notably the failure of Ervin Santana. Just too much talent in Anaheim, and a great manager. Who know about Seattle? They are getting better but seem to be doing it all with mirrors. So at this juncture the my bets would be on Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles and the Yankees. Hey, isn't that what I said in April?

Now we'll get to what my friend Terry is waiting for breathlessly. Congrats on the rise of the D-backs, Terry. Granted they are in a mediocre division, but they are an agreeably aggressive young team with a hopeful future. The difference in their performance this year, though, is not from their offense but in their relief pitching, where Jose Valverde has established himself as reliable rather than the volatile mess he was last season. The Padres are their closest competition thanks to superb starting (Peavy and Young are the best one-two in baseball, so watch out if they get into the play-offs). I have a soft spot for Colorado, the one team in the division not to have won in this century, but it's not likely to happen here. And the Dodgers simply do not have enough offensive punch to overcome the injuries to their staff. You may write nasty notes to me, Terry, but I think at this juncture that the Padres will sneak past Arizona, though I wouldn't throw money at the thought.

The best race may be in the Central, where the Cubs are about to overtake the Brewers. I think the Brewers have suffered a bit from incompetent managing by Ned Yost and some awful set-up relievers like the dreadful Derrick Turnbow. Just yesterday the relief corps blew a five-run lead in the ninth. Add the injury to Ben Sheets and the decline of Chris Capuano and I can't see them withstanding the run of the rejuvenated Cubs. Chicago has lost Soriano for a while, but they have another terrific one-two punch in Zambrano and Hill, a lot of good hitters and an experienced Lou Piniella. I'm not counting out the Cardinals, but they seem flaccid offensively and sorely in need of a healthy Chris Carpenter, which ain't gonna happen till 2009. This is a really poor division, though--worse even than the NL West--and any team can collapse. I do have to apologize for my pre-season pick of the Reds. I thought they might slide in as the best of the worst, rather than the worst of the worst.

I'm still holding onto my World Series pick of the Mets, which means they have to qualify. If Pedro Martinez returns in some style in September they probably will withstand any surges by the Phillies and the improved Braves. Two of these teams will qualify for the post-season, and the Phils have been handicapped by the injury to Utley, but I still think they will sneak in after just missing the past few seasons. Mark Texeira's addition to the Braves gives them a formidable line-up but their starters are iffy and Smoltz is so, so old.

Ergo, my NL picks are the Mets, Cubs, Padres and Phils--not exactly what I foresaw in April, but frankly, with all but a few of the NL teams, you can pick their names out of a hat or have a monkey throw darts at a board to choose the winners. That's what parity brings. But it makes for a pleasantly competitive final stretch, and we will have to watch something after Bonds completes his dirty work.

A Bridge to Fear

Among mankind's more enlightened inventions was the bridge, which became both literal and metaphorical symbols of cooperation and achievement. The concept of the bridge as a connecting span is powerful in our imaginations, so much so that a "bridge to the 21st century" was a successful theme of a recent Presidential campaign. The word "bridge" is rarely used with any negative connotations. This is why it is hard to grasp the significance of the bridge collapse in, of all cities, Minneapolis, one of our most "habitable" urban centers.

Thornton Wilder, in his seminal story "The Bridge over San Luis Rey," tries to analyze the cosmic consequences of chance mixed with human endeavor that led to the seemingly arbitrary deaths of five unfortunates crossing when the ropes snapped. Now editorial writers--and bloggers, heh heh--are attempting to do the same, while suppressing the horror of the event, lest it affect our attitudes regarding all high-rise spans we transverse daily. Time hasn't given us enough distance to view with clarity, as they are still digging up bodies of victims. But already some predictable reactions have emerged.

A news feature yesterday focused on the "positive," that is the relatively fortunate who avoided total calamity. These included dozens of students on a school bus who missed annihilation by about twenty feet. I am very glad for them, to be sure. But others voiced specific opinions that they were saved by the Grace of God, which made me, of course, want to spit. If God had so much grace, why did he knock over the bridge in the first place, then kill as many as twenty or thirty unaware motorists? Did they all merits such a sudden, awful, fate while the students were innocently deserving of more time on earth? I personally think God has a lot of 'splainin' to do. If you get the credit, you gotta accept the blame.

I think it is equally as likely that God, not wanting my rotisserie team to win, caused a bridge near the Twins' ballpark to collapse so that the ball game would be postponed and my pitcher, Johann Santana, would not face the lowly Royals but rather the tougher Indians today, and their pitcher C.C. Sabathia, also on my team. This is an idea that the late Kurt Vonnegut might have liked, as in his "Sirens of Titan," when the Tramalfadoreans created all sorts of famous earthly structures just to send a message to a galactic mechanic. If God is everywhere all the time, why would he not be following my Rotisserie fortunes as closely as anything else. He managed to destroy ouu chances two years ago when he had my entire pitching staff sit in the last week, allowing the team named "Jesus" to overtake us.

The true significance of the bridge disaster was, in the reality in which I choose to reside , that it signified a deterioration. And in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Our national infrastructure, our systems of roads and bridges, is mostly sixty to a hundred years old, and is badly in need of repair, if not overhaul. Just as our executive leadership has been eroding our civil liberties and our intellectual and scientific standards, it has ignored the erosion of our structures (see Katrina, ad nauseum), and now they are beginning to founder. One would imagine the list of Bush's failures could not get any longer, but here's one more ghastly oversight. And I'm sure he will ride to the site and utter some lame bromides that will be of no comfort at all to the stunned residents, and finally tie it all into Al Qaeda and how the terrorists in Iraq must not follow us home.