Heckuva Job, Brownie!

Why does this not surprise me?

Brown told a group of graduate students Friday that some in the White House had suggested the federal government should take charge in Louisiana because Blanco was a Democrat, while leaving Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, in control in his state...

..."Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,'" he said, without naming names. "'We can't do it to Haley (Barbour) because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'"...

...Blanco reacted sharply to Brown's remarks.

"This is exactly what we were living but could not bring ourselves to believe. Karl Rove was playing politics while our people were dying," Blanco said through a spokeswoman, referring to Bush's top political strategist. "The federal effort was delayed, and now the public knows why. It's disgusting."

Every time I hear something like this, I'm reminded of how a former Bush Administration official once characterized the Bush White House:

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus...What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Everything is political. Nothing else matters. Except maybe marketing. Think back to Sept. 2002, in the run-up to the 2002 midterm elections, as the Bush Administration made its case for the Iraq War. Why now, some asked, eleven years after the Gulf War, with Saddam Hussein's regime crippled by sanctions, kept in a box by no-fly zones? White House chief of staff Andrew Card had the answer:

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."