Phil's Thinking

Well, it's been a very active week for the TWD staff. Disaster after disaster simply overwhelmed us. We were tempted to call in FEMA, but we couldn't wait a month. Here's how your favorite disasters fared this week:



HURRICANE KATRINA. After a startling debut, the old windbag went from a Category 4 to a Category 3 as she crossed the Gulf Coast. By the time she reached Tennessee, she had less wind than a vegan at a Pork Festival.



JOHN ROBERTS. Following the timely death of Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, Mr. Roberts, who was set to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, got a THUMBS UP from the President and was named the presumptive Chief Justice. Should the Senate hearings drag on for months, Mr. Roberts may become ALL the justices.



MICHAEL BROWN. The head of FEMA was in way over his head this week as the floodwaters in New Orleans were way over the heads of its trapped citizens. Unaware that New Orleans is in Louisiana, the flummoxed Brown sent 2000 National Guard troops to Louisville, Kentucky. The citizens of Louisville, fearing that a major disaster was heading their way, evacuated as quickly as they could. Brown, upon hearing the news, ordered more troops into St. Louis.



FECAL MATTER. The seldom used phrase got a big push from all major news agencies as they reported on the contaminated floodwaters flowing through New Orleans. Fecal matter references nearly quadrupled over last year, and supplanted CHENEY as the Number One synonym for smelly poop.

The passing of actor Bob Denver, best known for his work as the well-meaning, yet hapless Gilligan on "Gilligan's Island," is a sad event in and of itself. But what is sadder is that the American people are saddled with countless real-life Gilligans in the Bush White House.

Not even Gilligan could've bungled the effort to save the thousands of marooned victims of Hurrican Katrina. And where was the Skipper when we needed him?

The list of Bush Administration Gilligans is long. It starts at the top with the bumbling lead Gilligan, ably played by George W. Bush. You may remember him from 2002's great disaster movie "WMD: The Search For Nothing." In this most recent episode, we find our leading Gilligan eating birthday cake with Senator John McCain while tens of thousands of New Orleanians cried out for just a taste of frosting. And a bottle of Crystal Geyser.



Reminded that he is indeed the First Mate (to Cheney's Skipper), Gilligan Bush relucantly agrees to leave the birthday party, and flies to Mississippi for a well-choreographed three-hour tour (a three-hour tour.) He's accompanied by the oh-so-sweet and dazed Maryann (Laura Bush) who looks like she's been hit on the head with a coconut.

Meanwhile, our next Gilligan, played by the versatile Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (he also plays The Professor), is busy calling press conferences, apparently unaware that press conferences cannot feed the hungry or rebuild broken lives. His latest funny gaffe, calling Louisana a "city," fails to humor a public looking for action and answers.

On the other side of the tracks, the Millionaire (GHW Bush) and his wife Lovey (Barbara Bush) offer their help by touring the refugee camp once known as The Astrodome. Lovey seems a bit out of her element, having never seen so many poor Negroes at one time. But she does her best to hold it together and chirps merrily "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is working very well for them." Again, the joke falls flat with the American audience.

Back in the Gulf area, the youngest Gilligan, Arabian horse expert and FEMA Director Michael Brown is paddling furiously. He surrounds himself with the higher-placed Gilligans, hoping he can hide somewhere in the lagoon. Calls for his resignation come from many, including the glamorous Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi.

But it's really not Gilligan Brown's fault. On the S.S. Minnow that is the Bush Administration, his department was gutted, underfunded, and folded into Gilligan Chertoff's Department. The message here: even if the weather starts getting rough and the tiny ship is tossed, who really cares?

And where was Ginger throughout our national spectacle? She was at the Convention Center in New Orleans, along with thousands of others, her glamour diminished by no food, no water, not a single luxury.

Last thing I heard, she was looting the local Victoria's Secret.

Barbara Bush - the woman whom no less an authority than Dick Nixon said "knows how to hate," the woman who didn't want to trouble her "beautiful mind" with thoughts of "body bags and deaths" - has now offered us yet another gem. After visiting refugees staying at the Houston Astrodome, she had this to say:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is working very well for them."

What's the difference between Noah and President Bush?

When warned of a flood, Noah built an ark and gathered the animals two-by-two.

When warned of a flood, Bush shot a two-over par 74.

©2005

Let’s get real. The chaos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina isn’t just a problem of logistics or getting food and fresh water to the good people of New Orleans.

It’s a problem of suspenders and zippers, because, once again, the Bush Administration’s been caught with their pants down.

While tens of thousands of National Guard troops linger in the very dry cities of Tikrit and Fallujah, their very presence angering a country tired of occupation, tens of thousands of American citizens languish in Third World conditions because there are so few troops here to help. How is it that we can get a Black Hawk chopper to our wounded GIs in less than five minutes, but it takes four days for FEMA to drop off some Gatorade to poor folks in the heart of The Big Easy?

President Bush, as usual, has awakened from his torpor a day too late. The ever-vacationing President, whose administration year after year cut levee construction and maintenance budgets for Louisiana, has reluctantly hiked up his pants to oversee another disaster. His brave work on the telephone and in cabinet meetings has unleashed the full power of FEMA, whose feverish, around-the-clock planning has resulted in more deaths than a typical day in Baghdad.

Oh, Great Leader, thank you for calling in your daddy to work his fund-raising magic again! What was that? You’re actually going to visit this shell-shocked area? Why the mere presence of you bravely filling a sandbag or handing out bottles of Evian will surely raise the spirits of the nearly-dead and barely-fed. I can see you now, bullhorn in hand, standing on a pile of rubble next to a very large Mississippi State trooper and shouting “We’re gonna get the people responsible for this!” Oh wait, it was God. “We’re gonna get the God responsible for this!” Better bring Pat Robertson along with you.

Ah, but disasters are your bread and butter. If not for 9-11, another tragedy you were totally unprepared for, you’d be watching President John Kerry right now on your big-screen TV in Crawford, marveling at how nice his poofy hair behaves in the heat and humidity of the Deep South. If not for this hurricane, you’d still be beset by that nagging, grieving mother named Cindy.

Oh, disasters have been very good to you. They define your entire presidency. Yes, you are indeed the Disaster President.

As you and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff zip up your pants and get down to the hard work of denying negligence and brushing off claims of incompetence, the victims of Katrina will be watching your every move. And it’ll be really easy to do because, once again, you moved way too slowly.