There is a tremendous amount of anger and disbelief at the inept FEMA response, Bush's grandstanding and Chertoff's inability to tell the truth. But I don't see this as incompetence. More and more, I find myself drawn to that Grover Norquist gem, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
I believe that the apparently inept federal response is a coldly calculated effort at showing the American people that you cannot rely on the government for aid. If they can do this while destroying confidence in the local and state governments of Nagin and Blanco, so much the better. A few days ago, EPA workers named the flood waters "Lake George," but if the conservatives are successful in using this disaster to political ends we might as well call it, "Grover's Bathtub."