Bush
In another attempt at frantic grasping for his public support, the President is giving a prime time address to the nation tonight, from New Orleans. This is on the heels of his "taking responsibility" yesterday (transcript)--something every news report I heard properly described as a complete change in his public posturing. I'm guessing tonight he will say that the "blame game" portion of the exercise, which he formerly thought it wasn't yet time for, is now over. So for a while it was too soon for blaming, and now it will be past time. We're ready to move on and re-build, he'll say. That way we can skip over that blaming thing altogether.

Once again, he has the chance, and there is a real need, to ask for public sacrifice. This is going to cost us alot of money. A TON. Like Josh Marshall points out, Bush seems poised to address his political crisis by throwing money at it. The Washington Post says he will ask for more money on Katrina-related funding this year than the cost of the entire Iraq War thus far. So, will he finally announce a roll-back in his tax cuts for the wealthy? Or a cut in defense spending? Hell, even a small one-year Katrina tax would probably be met with plenty of support and would fund most of it. Of course, that won't happen. We'll simply add it to the debt. Pretend like all that money is free. Then in a year or 2, when deficits blow past all previous records, Bush can come back around and play one more round of the "blame game"---"It wasn't me. Hurricane Katrina wrecked the budget."

And under the table, who will receive all this money? Who will get the contracts? Who will do the work? Displaced, poverty-stricken former residents who need the job and have a stake in its being done right? Environmental experts who could assure that we rebuild in a way that protects the coastline and the people at the same time? No...that would make too much sense. Round up the usual suspects. Political hacks, loyal friends, oil industry.