Rita's gone

Well, thankfully, Hurricane Rita didn't cause as much damage (or death) as Katrina did a few weeks earlier. Still, the response of the federal government was "evacuate everybody," which meant a major traffic congestion and people stuck on the highway for up to 12 hours under the sun. Not my idea of efficiency; call me cynical if you wish.

Having underreacted to Katrina, government officials—as well as the anxious public—were taking no chances with Rita. The result was a traffic jam that looked like a scene out of "Deep Impact," or, worse, the aftermath of a dirty bomb exploding in an American city.

Along the Gulf Coast south of Houston, the plan contemplated that 1.25 million people would evacuate. Twice that number took to the highways. They were caught in a hellish gridlock. Cars ran out of gas and had to be pushed off the road; babies and old people suffered in the 100-degree heat; a bus full of nursing-home refugees caught fire and exploded, probably because so many of the elderly brought oxygen tanks.

And just imagine that: who would have ever thought that evacuating a 4 million people city would cause so much traffic?! And let me tell you something else: I'm not at all impressed by Bush's response this time either. Last time he did nothing, so this time he tried to do everything he could. And overstretched.

Why did he leave the White House, to go to the headquarters of Northern Command in Colorado, to follow the storm? Was it necessary? I don't think so, since he could have done the same from the situation room in the White House (yes, I watch The West Wing) without stepping on the military's toes.

But he was desperate to show he was doing something, anything, this time around. So his handlers brought him to a military base, where evidently he didn't get as good a night sleep as he did in Crawford, Texas:

His eyes were puffy from lack of sleep (he had been awakened all through the night with bulletins), and he seemed cranky and fidgety. A group of reporters and photographers had been summoned by White House handlers to capture a photo op of the commander in chief at his post. Bush stared at them balefully. He rocked back and forth in his chair, furiously at times, asked no questions and took no notes. It almost seemed as though he resented having to strike a pose for the press.

Poor George. I wonder if he ever wondered about the people who slept little or nothing while still on the road, or still in Houston (apparently the homeless were left behind again.)

Furthermore, his leaving the White House this time, I believe suggests that that setting wouldn't have been enough to prepare for the storm's aftermath. So with Katrina, he did even less than we thought he did by not going back to DC.

What a failure of a president.