Follow the “Let them eat cake” lede:
Almost two months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and a month after promising in a nationally televised speech to help rebuild the region “quickly,” President Bush has settled on a cautious, piecemeal approach that even many members of his own party fear will stall reconstruction and sow economic disarray.
At the end of the piece, we find even Jack Kemp complaining about the White House’s response to Katrina: “Laissez-faire, Darwinian capitalism is not going to work here.” And then there’s Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation: “There’s been a general hands-off approach, which is disturbing.” When even the vanguard is getting a bit queasy over dear leader’s callousness, something’s gone horribly wrong.