Bush's Perfect Storm:

Imagine if a few weeks ago someone had polled all of the Bush critics in the country, and asked them to list the primary faults that they see in this administration. I suspect, give or take a few entries, the results would have looked something like this:

• Obsession with Iraq at the cost of all other national priorities
• Unwillingness to admit mistakes
• Hostility to science
• Embarrassing juvenile attitude
• Indifference to the fates of the poorest members of society
• Cronyism and unwillingness to fire anyone for incompetence
• Tendency to spend way too much time on vacation
• Inability to plan and execute large-scale operations effectively

If Hurricane Katrina ends up being the turning point when it becomes clear to a solid majority of the country that Bush has been a fundamentally incompetent leader, I suspect it will be because the Katrina crisis turned out expose all eight of these flaws.

More...