Some of my friends will disagree, but I feel Bush sounded the perfect tone last night, even if, embedded in his speech, were many troubling items like money funneling from the government to churches, and a refusal to raise federal funding via keeping taxes stable or increasing them, and an increased military role on domestic soil. Cognitive dissonance will keep many from keying in on those. My bet was late – I expected a 10% approval rating bump two weeks after Katrina – it’s on the way now. Especially with putting Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction effort. The man behind his talking points. His political advisor. His brain. This move, I’m afraid, will slip by the press and will get mentioned as an aside – which is terrible because it reveals all you need to know about this President and his motivations. Read The All Spin Zone, Talking Points Memo, Billmon and Metafilter for more.

Joshua Micah Marshall: This is a time when the country needs an opposition party. Every Democrat should be hitting on this. Take the politics out of the reconstruction effort. He put his chief spin-doctor in charge of the biggest reconstruction and refugee crisis the country’s probably ever faced. That tells you all you need to know about his values.

In related/unrelated news employer-sponsored health insurance is becoming scarcer and more expensive. A report out says premiums for job-based health insurance rose 9.2 percent on average nationwide in 2005, about three times the general rate of inflation and the percentage of businesses offering health benefits to employees dropped to 60 percent in 2005, down from 69 percent in 2000

The beat goes on.

I think a turning point in Katrina coverage has been reached. There has been some good news of progress being made in the relief effort. Parts of New Orleans are reopening shortly. Newsmagazines and newspapers have detailed and blasted the response to the catastrophy. And yesterday, finally, Bush admited some responsibility. A dangerous point. Now folks need to keep in mind Duncan’s call to keep light here as the stories grow more complicated and sometimes more repetitive and mundane.

The chorus of activists and pundits that have called for the armed forces to act sooner, have raised questions over the domestic use of troops (USAToday). A dangerous and scary discussion needs to happen here. Let’s not hope for a new Patriot Act that permits rapid use of the armed forces on American soil. Let’s hope for a National Guard that is used as it should be.

Daily Mail: We had to kill our patients: Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Related Metafilter discussion.

USAToday: Nursing home owners charged in 34 deaths: Neighbors described a horrible scene that unfolded on Aug. 29… Floodwaters rose to the roof of the one-story nursing home in St. Bernard, outside New Orleans, trapping elderly and infirm residents… Neighbors came in boats and smashed a hole in the roof. “We tried to get out as many as we could,” said Steve Snyder, 29, an oil rig worker. “All we could go by was the hollering and screaming, ‘Help, help!’ ” “We got 25 to 27 people out alive,” Snyder said. “And then we didn’t hear any more screaming…The Manganos surrendered to authorities on Tuesday and were charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide.

I don’t know, but wouldn’t you agree that someone up for the Supreme Court should answer questions on views such as this?

Remember – after Roberts, we will go thru this all over again. The court will be changed for the next ten to twenty years.

If you can’t keep track of the comings and goings of your staff…. well wow. Check out the video. The guy should have been fired. Hopefully Brown is not just the sacrificial idiot and a deeper look will take place into what went wrong.

Speaking of which, Digby looks into who the administration will eventually cast blame to and how the race card will come into play. Susie Madrak, in a great post, challenges Democrats to wake up:

I’d like to know when Democratic liberals are going to address this particular problem with some kind of plan to turn it around. But no, racists are always “those people�? who live somewhere else, preferably south of the Mason-Dixon line, and liberals want nothing to do with them because “we’re better than that.�? (Remember the heat Howard Dean took for saying he wanted the guys with the pickup trucks and the Confederate flag decals? And how the liberal establishment was all a-twitter? He was right, goddamnit.)

Such horseshit. Really.

Most people are racist out of sheer ignorance and fear. Most of that fear is grounded in resentment at their own narrow economic options. What I want to know is, when are liberals going to address that particular issue instead of tsk-tsking the afflicted and insisting they all stay quarantined somewhere else?

The road to racial equality lies somewhere in the general vicinity of economic prosperity. The Republican agenda has the working poor of all colors fighting over very small slices of an ever- shrinking pie. No wonder racism’s so effective – the poor are so busy fighting each other, they don’t even notice the thieves at the top. (emphasis mine – Karl)

Damn if that doesn’t get to the heart of it. I opined in her commetents for a movement to support and unite poor, the working poor, labor, the infirm and the elderly of all colors and religions. Our parties are more interested in pursuing votes – after all – these segments of our country don’t – then in pursuing justice and common good. Imgaine what would happen this changed?