After the storm: what's wrong with America? (Scotland)

[donsu]

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1920362005

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It is easy to forget that prior to September 11 the Bush presidency appeared purposeless and adrift. It was given meaning by Osama bin Laden. The ineffectual response to Katrina has, temporarily perhaps, eclipsed the War on Terror and shown the Bush administration at its worst: out of touch, sluggish to the point of indifference and ultimately incompetent. A government of cronies and toadies, such as the hapless head of FEMA, Michael Brown, promoted well beyond their station.

As former House Speaker and would-be 2008 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich put it this week, "We're not in a values fight now but over whether the system is working. The issue is delivery." By that measurement the Bush administration is failing. Katrina didn't just breach the levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans, it breached the idea of government itself.

Katrina has exposed the paucity of the President's domestic agenda - a weakness that has always been present but that hitherto had been outweighed by events overseas and the war on terror. According to Charlie Cook of the National Journal, "the bottom lines are, on a macro level does Katrina prolong what has been a horrible summer for President Bush, does it compound pre-existing problems and does it blow the roof off the Federal budget deficit? I think yes."

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Is it so surprising then that the two best-selling books should be the new Harry Potter and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code - a children's escapist fantasy and an unconvincing conspiracy theory respectively? Taken together they represent two strands of America's mood four years after 9/11: a need to get away from the grim reality of the contemporary world and an uneasy feeling that forces beyond the control of ordinary people are somehow pulling the strings.
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it's faith, baby! people have drank the kool aide and have FAITH.

and the voting is rigged - we're screwed

[Neocondriac]

1. clarity...

some things need to be seen from a distance for better clarity. Nice Article.