Plenty of room at the ranch in Crawford these days

Maybe now that Shrub has decamped early to avoid Cindy Sheehan and (until this morning) the Katrina disaster, he might open up his ranch to the refugees? There is room for thousands of cots, plus the lovely bike trails will provide hours of exercise for people who have been stuck in those cramped seats at the Superdome.

I hope to God Bush (or Rove on his behalf) has the brains gets his picture taken today, during his visit to the area, spending a few hours (not a few minutes) on the relief line handing out food and water to his fellow Americans. Otherwise the $6,000 an hour in jet fuel that Air Force One burns to get him down there (again, after his flyover the other day) will have been a disgusting waste.

I have to imagine that in their day Bush Senior or Reagan or B. Clinton or Carter or someday McCain or Giuliani or Gore or H. Clinton or Ahnuld or Jeb Bush would be there sweating, in muddy boots, passing out bottled water and food while the Marine One presidential helicopter rescued desperately sick people from hospital rooftops even if the nice clean Presidential seats were going to get all damp and stinky from the mud and blood....

The Mandarin is planning to make a donation to the Red Cross, but a friend of his, something of a Mandarin himself, just pointed out something the Mandarin had been mulling over in the shower this morning. The Mandarin and his family, more fortunate than many of those we see in the horrific TV images, paid enough in various federal taxes last year to buy everyone at the Superdome a square meal and a big bottle of water (or enough for the gas Air Force One is burning to fly Shrub from Washington to the gulf coast and back today)... Those dollars ought to be available for assisting our fellow Americans in distress, but the Mandarin is afraid that President Bush has blown them on some neocon nation-building stunt in Iraq. So, another dip into the wallet seems the thing to do.

And where are the Bush twins? Not burdened by onerous 9-to-5 jobs, they could certainly spend a few days showing the family flag down in the disaster zone. Just tell them its an all-expense paid week in the French Quarter. Chips off the old Shrub, they probably don't read newspapers or watch TV news anyway, so think what a nice surprise would await them when they stepped off the plane.