"Outrage" doesn't quite seem to go far enough, does it?

Outrage set in for me when heard that Bush was enjoying his vacation while people were dying in the greatest natural disaster to hit this country in generations (and possibly ever). Outrage reached its boiling point when I learned Condi Rice went on vacation after the disaster hit. And when I learned Dick Cheney was also on fucking vacation during this crisis, my outrage became so massive that it collapsed into a black hole and pulled a chunk of my soul with it.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans suffering in barely-imaginable conditions. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead and dying. A major city obliterated and an entire region of the country plunged suddenly into third-world war-zone conditions. AND THE PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT, AND SECRETARY OF STATE ARE ALL ON VACATION.

The Chimp smirked through a couple of recent appearances, and muttered cheerfully about how he "understands." Can I see a show of hands of how many people believe that? Yes, you in the back? What's that? Oh, yes yes, you can go to the lavatory. Now, really, anybody believe Bush?

Didn't think so.

I think America needs to realize the painful and horrifying truth: we have no President. See, most of us have been slowly coming to terms with the possibility that we are stuck with an incompetent and empty boob of a POTUS who embarrasses us at every turn, but the reality is worse than we imagined. We simply have nothing. Bush can't even do the bare fucking minimum of showing the hell up when serious shit is going down in his country. Bush thinks "getting on with his life" is more important than doing the job he was fucking hired to do. He's completely removed himself from his office, his duties, and even the most rudimentary display of human decency that we used to expect from our elected officials.

To make matters worse, we can't count on the rest of the government to take up the slack. The "culture of life" had Congress scrambling back from vacation within hours of the removal of Terry Shiavo's feeding tube, even meeting on the night of Easter Sunday, but an emergency session of Congress didn't lurch into motion until nearly a week after Katrina hit. I guess it's more pro-life to invade the privacy of a woman who wants to die than it is to save a city full of people struggling to live.

They tried to kick Clinton out of office for getting a blowjob, but I am forced to wonder if anybody will even bother to ask Bush to explain himself. I know we aren't allowed to take our lips off the pretty pink buttcheeks of Dear Leader long enough to criticize anything this administration does, but maybe we can make an exception just this once? Maybe we can ask him why hundreds of people had to die because he wanted to play guitar instead of playing President. Maybe we can ask Condi Rice why buying Ferragamo shoes on 5th Ave was more important than helping save the lives of the people she was hired to serve. Maybe we can ask why rebuilding Iraq is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert doesn't think we should rebuild New Orleans. Maybe, just maybe, this can be the last straw for some of those last hold-out fanatics who have excused and mumbled away all of the hideous failures of the Bush administration.

There have been two disasters in Louisiana in the past week. The first, the natural disaster, would have been horrifying enough in its own right. But the second disaster is a man-made nightmare of incompetence and indifference. It has far surpassed anything Mother Nature has thrown at us because it didn't have to happen.

It didn't have to happen.