Dot Calm’s Cure du Jour: the Needless Woe of Katrina in a Form George W. Bush Would Have Understood

George W. Bush has been captured on video in a briefing, blithely promising Americans that we were prepared for hurricane Katrina. This is the same briefing in which a top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees. This is the same briefing in which Michael Brown, then the Federal Emergency Management Agency chief, told Mr. Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff of his fears that there weren't enough disaster teams to aid evacuees at the Superdome. In this same briefing, Bush asked zero questions. "We are fully prepared," he hollowly assured us.

We've all heard how a preparatory DVD was presented to Mr. Bush...

He ignored it, and I know why.

They should have prepared the news in coloring book form...

See, Georgie?

See the organized clouds hovering overhead? Color them Katrina...

See the National Hurricane Center warning? Color it ignored...

See the man in the nice videoconference warning? Color him Max Mayfield, hero...

See the man dawdling around for 5 hrs? Color him FEMA director Michael Chertoff.

See the impeccably well-dressed man who lied on his resume? Color him Brown...

Color the pretty picture of the levees breaking...yes, Georgie, color them wet…

and the people on their roofs...color them screwed…

and the bodies floating by...color them dead...

and the floating cars and houses...color them gone forever...

and water rushing over the Industrial Canal…color it lower ninth ward & St. Barnard parish...

and the shiny, new shoes from 5th Avenue…designer shoes that cost over five hundred dollars per pair…color them Condi's from her shopping spree while people drowned...

See the nice man crying? Color him Mayor Nagin...

and your own weekly radio address? Color it sleight-of-hand...

and the BIG hole in the superdome roof? Color 10,000 storm refugees inside...

See the bitch making ignorant remarks? Color her your mama, Barbara Bush...

and the American people...the ones who suffered most from the storm? Color them dark...color them very dark...

Color the hardest-hit areas poor…color what will replace the people and their heritage gentrified…

See all the empty clean, dry, warm beds? Color them USS Bataan, a large navy ship...

and the pretty parade...color it brave for the survivors in New Orleans.