Remember how the President suspended Davis-Bacon prevailing wage provisions in order to make it easier for minority-owned businesses to get federal contracts?  Well, if this WSJ article via Daniel Gross is any indication, there are a lot of minority business owners in Mississippi and Louisiana trying figure out why they were left out of the running, especially for some of the more lucrative contracts handed out not long after Katrina hit.

This Iron Mouth Editor attended the massive anti-war demonstration on Saturday in D.C.  At one point we were held up because march organizers did not want counter protesters in front to be photographed leading the march.  They wanted them to clear out before moving forward.  Expecting a crowd, I saw four counter protesters. 

So it was no suprise that I learned that the pro-war rally billed as a 20,000 strong demonstration of support for the troops drew 400. 

Oh, and remember how Bush asked for direct contributions to the Iraq reconstruction fund?  In the first two weeks of the program the donations have been rushing in:

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt.

The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

Two ipods. Heh.

I've never understood the decision to take people from the Gulf Coast and put them up in FEMA sponsored trailer parks.  Beyond the stigma of concentrated poverty associated with trailer parks, there are any number of programs like Section 8 housing vouchers that would probably be more effective at reintegrating the evacuees into any number of communities throughout the Southeast and elsewhere.  Looking at this article made me even angrier because they know that Section 8 and other public-private venture programs have worked well in past disasters yet they still go ahead with the trailer parks!  Hell, even Newt Gingrich thinks its a godawful idea!  Cost and expediency seem pretty hollow reasons when in effect they will be creating unsightly reminders of the failure of the government's original response to Katrina for months, if not years, to come.  Watching Rita start to hit the coast, it looks like the trailer and RV industry is going to be pretty busy.

Looks like the Pentagon isn't the only place having trouble with numbers, budgets and accounting.  Who knew that there were so many Foreign Agricultural Service Attache's and they made so much money?  Are there any job openings in the meantime?

This is too weird.  Yep, Jeb again.

Germany--Joschka Fischer steps down.  What does this mean?

Fischer made clear that he would remain at the head of his party only under the most extreme circumstances. As far as he was concerned, it didn't make any sense for the Greens to be in any of the possible governing coalitions under discussion. Still, he said he would continue to take part in the negotiations, as long as it had to do with governing.

Hard to tell what all of this means.  Thoughts?

The candidate: Gerhard Schroeder

The Playbook:   Bush/Cheney 2000.

"There will be no coalition under her leadership with my Social Democrats," Mr Schröder said, glaring at his opponent across the table. "Apart from me, no one is in a position to form a stable government."

Mrs Merkel squirmed in her chair.

"I sent her a letter this morning, which should be there if her fax machine is working," said Franz Münterfering, the leader of the SPD. "Then we got a call from her office asking if we could talk."

She's already beat.

However, 50 percent of those polled said they feared the federal government would spend too much on reconstruction, and 45 percent said Americans should make "major sacrifices" to pay for the effort. But only 20 percent said they would be willing to make those sacrifices themselves.

Seventeen percent said they would be willing to pay higher taxes to support reconstruction efforts, while 15 percent favored financing the cost with more deficit spending. Six percent said they would pay for reconstruction efforts with cuts in domestic spending.

Seriously, we have to qualify for the most unrealistic electorate ever.  They want everything, but they don't want to pay for a dime of it.

Oh and:

Bush's overall job approval number was 40 percent, with 58 percent of those surveyed telling pollsters they disapproved of his performance in office. It is the second time his approval rating has hit that low a mark.

His personal qualities hit fresh lows: Only 49 percent called him a strong and decisive leader, down from 54 percent in July and 51 percent in August. Just 42 percent said he cares about people like themselves, and 47 percent called him honest and trustworthy.

GOP legislative priorities: There has to be some poor businessman killed by Katrina who we can use to sell that estate tax repeal?

NBC's Brian Williams notes in his blog this morning that there was much jubilation in New Orleans when the lights came on 30 minutes before the President's motorcade arrived for his speech last night.... and much disappointment when they turned everything off an hour after he left.  Probably looked good on TV, though?

Need to rebuild the Gulf Coast?  Who would you call to oversee such a massive undertaking?  Maybe somebody with some sort of experience managing such a massive reconstruction project?  Well if you're the President you evidently look to your chief political operative, Karl Rove. 

I don't know how the reconstruction effort will go but I think you can expect a lot of staged events, speeches, no-bid contracts for political supporters (ie. Republicans), sudden federal investigations to discredit meddling local officials (ie. Democrats) and just the right juxtaposition of images of our decisive and resolute Commander in Chief walking around the Gulf Coast for the next couple years.  Genius!

In the comments here, a battle has raged as to who is responsible for the mess in Louisiana.  We've focused mainly on the political aspects of the question, without getting much into the who did what when side of things.  What has come through on this and other blogs is that conservatives believe that it is the liberals and the media who are trying to play the "blame game."  The reality is much different, however. 

The Republicans had looked to place blame squarely at the feet of Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.  Since Nagin and Blanco had complained about the federal response, they were fair game in the eyes of the White House.  Its politics, after all.

But now ominous rumblings seem to indicate that a new phase of the blame game is in order.  Bush is now looking to exploit the tragedy to go after his traditional foes and burnish his image.  This makes sense given the name of the person who is running the operation to reconstruct New Orleans: Karl Rove.

That's right, the President's political eminence grise, Rove, is handling the operational task of rebuilding a city shattered by a killer storm.  Not a construction expert, or someone with experience running a large government organization, but a political operative with no governmental executive experience.  Hell, Michael Brown has more experience than Rove in these matters.

And what are the first results of this assignment?  Politics as usual, baby.  Contrary to his words of last night, Bush is going on a witch hunt to try and remove responsibility from his shoulders: Take this E-mail sent out by the Department of Justice to the U.S. Attorneys across the country:

SUBJECT: Have you had any cases involving the levees in New Orleans?

QUESTION: Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps' work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation.

District: __________
Contact: _________
Telephone: ________

 Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

This is a picture of George W. Bush writing a note to Condi Rice at the U.N. today:

From Reuters.

Germany's Gerhard Schroeder.  Told you.

The Ironmouth Editors dare J. Scott Barnard:(From an E-mail to J. Scott).

Ok, a dare for you--post a link to the non-partisan report by Congress' Investigative Arm, the Congressional Research Service indicating that Governor Blanco took every step needed under federal law to get help from the Federal government on August 27, 2005.  http://www2.dccc.org/docs/conyersgaokatrina.pdf

Thanks,

Rob

I got this E-mail from prolific commenter J. Scott Barnard today:

Rob:I dare you to prove that you have at least an ounce of objectivity by posting about this Democratic congressman's abuse of power to distract emergency services for personal use while people were drowning in N.O. I suspect you'll ignore it.

Well, we have a bit more of an ounce of objectivity:

On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.

Military sources tells ABC News that Jefferson, an eight-term Democratic congressman, asked the National Guard that night to take him on a tour of the flooded portions of his congressional district. A 5-ton military truck and a half dozen military police were dispatched.

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News that during the tour, Jefferson asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street, in the affluent uptown neighborhood in his congressional district. According to Schneider, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.

But we're not the only liberal blog reporting this story either: Josh Marshall calls it:

Iffy and Mysterious

Why?  Because Jefferson is under investigation for corruption, another fact reported by a liberal blog. 

However, as for having an ounce of objectivity, I refer readers to Jeff Blanco's Louisiana Conservative, whose rantings could never be accused of being liberal and whose editor is facing Katrina head on:

On last thing, Rob at Ironmouth did a good job of being critical of the president without politicizing the trajedy. Rob, I personally want to thank you for that.

Speaking of politicizing the tragedy, why does George Bush hate America?