The Shape of Days

Stephen Spruiell’s Media Blog is one of my regular reads, in no small part because the dude answers his e-mail. This morning he kicked my Monday off with a laugh by pointing out that a site called “America Blog” — ironically named to be sure — is politicizing the hell out of Hurricane Katrina with hilarious results.

“Just checking in with our Hurricane Bush Vacation Watch, keeping a tab on whether Bush is going to return to Washington to deal with this historically devastating hurricane, or whether he’s going to stay on vacation while a major American city faces imminent disaster,” writes anonymous “America Blog” contributor “John in DC.”

“John in DC” apparently thinks the President of the United States is constitutionally empowered to issue declarations of emergency only from his desk in the Oval Office. Or perhaps he believes that the West Wing is somehow equipped with a “stop the hurricanes” machine that can only be activated in person.

I think “John” has visions of the President as a SimCity player, rushing back to his desk when he hears the alarm to click madly on the “dispatch” button.

Nah. More likely, “John” is just an irrational, Bush-hating moron who would take any opportunity at all to bad-mouth the President. “I can’t find my keys. It remains to be seen if the media is going to ask what the hell the President is doing remaining on vacation while I can’t find my keys.”

• Memento mori
• They call it a ‘bleg’
• Dog dreams