Still waiting...

Well, I knew it was asking too much.

A great deal of the fury and fear that's gripping rational Americans right now could be alleviated by some simple, forthright, unifying words from our Commander In Chief. As I wrote several days ago, what we need in the wake of the continuing disaster in the Gulf is, at the very least, a sign of leadership from Washington. You know, something to let us know who's in charge. Isn't that the most basic thing we should expect (after a catastrophe with immediate and long term repercussions for the entire nation) from the guy who convinced people TWICE that he was the man for the job?

Instead, here we are, day ten after Katrina bludgeoned her way inland, and the best we've gotten were some canned remarks, a wistful daydream about Trent Lott's porch, and a cute new talking point called "the blame game". I was stunned at the terrible truth in Jon Stewart's pronouncement last night that the Administration had finally swung into high gear, and was marshalling its best minds to solve the real crisis - the negative political fallout, and the President's ever-worsening poll numbers.

Now I know I'm certainly not the first to raise these points, but they're issues we all have to raise every day until we get some real answers. Don't give me that "we'll investigate this later" nonsense. Tomorrow could be the day. The nuclear terror attack. A cataclysmic earthquake. The next inevitable hurricane that develops during the remaining season.

Or maybe just somebody igniting an unguarded chemical plant. Or poor people pleading on TV for drinking water in an American city.

Does it make any sense whatsoever to continue another hour with two school-buddy political lackeys heading our largest domestic security and response agencies? Even if Messrs. Brown and Chertoff hadn't failed the citizens of the Gulf quite so miserably, would we really want individuals holding their respective (that is, powerful) positions who have no prior qualifications for the job? This is not a partisan attack - it's a goddam common-sense observation! I don't care what the better-late-than-never Vice President says in their defense - the results speak for themselves.

We should be terrified that, in an all too familiar pattern, gross ineptitude continues to be fiercely protected in this administration. And don't kid yourselves - Mr. Bush's history of rewarding incompetence is a very real danger to us all. Left unaddressed and uncorrected, the failures that were so nakedly exposed in New Orleans could be played out again next week in Charleston, for God's sake, should another storm hit the coast there. If only this bunch put as much energy into finding real solutions as they spend on spin and obfuscation...

You could make a start here, Mr. Bush. Take that first baby step. You could gain back a lot of the public's trust if you'd just level with all of us, get the best people for the tasks at hand, and make some decisive moves to reassure us that the safety of America is your priority. You could act like the President, and not like some junior City Councilman whose first instinct is to change the subject, and cover his own derriere.

The hour is here to be a leader, in all senses of the word. You have a real opportunity to unite and comfort the nation by simply doing the right thing. Don't claim that you're "solving problems", when the answer to every question asked of the Administration is "now's not the appropriate time". Let me make it simpler, still. To use the Crawford vernacular...

Don't piss down our backs, and tell us it's rainin'!