What kind of chumps do they take us for?

First class, obviously.

Froomkin has a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the White House decided to change the message from "blame game" to "To the extent that we screwed up, which I still think is not at all, I take responsibility, but only because Karen Hughes said it was starting to hurt me in the polls."

Given all the talk in the media about how this is a change of message, and about how Bush is going to use his speech in Louisiana tomorrow night to try to re-establish his IMAGE as a strong leader, isn't anyone offended by this notion that this much-vaunted "leadership" really does turn out, in the end, to be nothing but spin?

Rush Limbaugh said a few weeks ago of Cindy Sheehan that her story was "Bill Burkett -- it's just forged documents; there's nothing about it that's real." Applied to the very real grief of Cindy Sheehan, Limbaugh was completely off base, and his remarks made no sense. But that this White House, after sending an obviously reluctant Georgie up there yesterday to mouth words with no substance or feeling behind them, thinks that they can get away with having him put on a performance and everything will be OK, well, I for one am insulted that they think I'm going to be fooled by this kind of horseshit.

The problem is that there WILL be people who'll be fooled by this kind of horseshit. Americans have a notoriously short memory, and not everyone can cope with the reality of what we are stuck with for nearly three and a half more years. Of course, returning to a la-la land in which Bush is competent and a war hero to boot doesn't change the fact that this country is going to be COMPLETELY FUBAR by the time he leaves office.

You've seen New Orleans? Armed mercenaries, poor people left to die, evisceration of worker pay scales so that corporations can get richer? That's ALL OF OUR future after Bush gets done.