In a related story, journalists have started asking tough questions

Poor Scott McClellan. He's got to be the guy standing up on the podium, shoveling the shit we have taken to calling "information." For far too long, the press has taken what he has had to offer, without much analysis or thought. Softball after softball- and then a wiffle ball or two from the gay prostitute in the back of the room.

The press have gotten their testes back.

Q Well, let's talk about it. Are you saying the President is -- are you saying that the President is confident that his administration is prepared to adequately, confidently secure the American people in the event of a terrorist attack of a level that we have not seen? And based on what does he have that confidence?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's what he made clear earlier today, that obviously we want to look and learn lessons from a major catastrophe of this nature.

Q Yes, but you're telling us today there will be time for that somewhere down the road. Well, what if it happens tomorrow?

MR. McCLELLAN: We can engage in this blame-gaming going on and I think that's what you're getting --

Q No, no. That's a talking point, Scott, and I think most people who are watching this --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact. I mean, some are wanting to engage in that, and we're going to remain focused --

Q I'm asking a direct question. Is he confident --

MR. McCLELLAN: We're going to remain focused on the people.

Q -- that he can secure the American people in the event of a major terrorist attack?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are securing the American people by staying on the offensive abroad and working to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

Q That's a talking point. That's a talking point.

Republicans are in trouble for 2006. It seems that the best we can hope from them in incompetence. At worst, they give us cronyism and corruption. Kick 'em out in 2006. All of them, en masse.

And a quick follow-up on my essay about Katrina. It was cited in Blogcritics, and I got dissed.

CThomasEsq of DeToqueville Blvd muses about "Root Causes" for the disaster on the Gulf, laying the blame squarely on ordinary drivers (you and me) for contributing to global warming. Oh, yeah, and President Bush for not signing the Kyoto Accords.

Okay, that does it! It must be true, -I- caused Hurricane Katrina. I mean, what is it, a giant moving mass of hot air? I rest my case.

He chides me and others for trying to find the reasons for the disaster at a time when there is still so much to do in terms of immediate relief. Fair enough- but you can support the people on the ground while still piecing the puzzle together. Things do not happen without a reason. Hurricanes do not form over Greenland (yet)- the Earth is getting warmer, and hurricanes requires warm water to form. If there is a better explantion, please call me on it.

And as if to prove my point, Tropical Storm Ophelia is floating off the Florida coast. Ophelia is the fifteenth named storm of this season, not counting the unnamed tropical depressions. 2005 is now the seventh most active hurricane season since records began being kept.

Statistical peak of the season will be Saturday.