The US president takes it on the chin this morning in an editorial from the NYTimes. No surprises there, what with the Times being the figurehead for “liberal” bias in the American media.

Fox News, on the other hand, leads today with a surreal story about Bush flying over New Orleans in Air Force One, to see the devastation for himself. They then make this petulant remark:

While condolences started trickling in from around the globe two full days after the widespread devastation in the southern United States left at least 100 dead in Mississippi alone, Germany and Great Britain on Wednesday were the first to offer their assistance if the United States requests such aid.

Yes, what’s important now is that Europe didn’t offer condolences to the USA fast enough, NOT that the President himself was two full days late in leaving his chaise lounge in Texas to actually do something about the disaster, and then what he did was fly over it and look down. Unbelievable.

Here’s more liberal bias from the Times:

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast’s most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans’s levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane’s surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area’s flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America “will be a stronger place” for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.