Happy belated birthday, Katrina, wherever you are....

The Mandarin's birthday is September 11, and he occasionally regrets that date has become so infamous, a verbal icon of so many bad memories for our nation. Yesterday, the Mandarin read Senator Kerry's indictment of the Shrub regime in his speech at Brown University, labeling it the "Katrina Administration." There is overwhelming merit to his argument that the shamefully bungled Federal response to Katrina by Georgie, Brownie, FEMA, et. al., is an emblem of a much more pervasive incompetence in the Executive Branch. Anyway, reading that, and pondering the name Katrina becoming another verbal icon like "9/11," it occurred to the Mandarin that women and girls named Katrina might be feeling the way the Mandarin does about his infamous birthday. They aren't just Katrina any more, they share the name of a national tragedy and a national disgrace at the same time. And, among those women and girls, somewhere, is a Katrina born on September 11th. So, to that Katrina, the Mandarin says: "Happy belated birthday, Katrina, wherever you are...."