It seems obvious that George W. Bush’s nomination for Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court is an attempt at “legacy building,” so to speak.  Seeing as how Roberts is only 50 years old, we can look forward to a few decades of hearing the words “Bush Appointee” as a prefix to Roberts’ title and name.  But will the soon-to-be "distinguished" career of John Roberts be a suitable legacy for George W?  Can it overshadow the intelligence failures that preceded September 11?  Will it divert the attention of historians from a painful yet necessary dissection of the war in Iraq?  Not likely, I suppose.  That is, unless Roberts can accomplish that which his friend, mentor, and predecessor William Rehnquist failed to do and finally outlaw abortion in the US.  It’s a pretty tall order to ask someone to roll back the clock to 1972.  Or maybe Bush and Roberts would prefer 1952....We’ll all find out soon enough.

Despite all this, there’s a good chance that Hurricane Katrina will ultimately become the defining moment of the Bush presidency and in a sense we can expect this moment in time to become the true legacy of George W. Bush.  Bush now says that no one could have anticipated the breach of the levees, yet several studies and reports had foretold of likelihood of such a catastrophe some time before the hurricane — and remember, the administration’s response to these warnings was to scale back funding for projects that were intended to shore up the Gulf coast area.  Thousands of dead and misplaced Americans, a savage blow to the American economy and a widening gap in America’s racial and socioeconomic divide...Now that’s a legacy that is worthy of the Bush name.

President Bush has vowed to lead the inquiry into the government’s many Katrina-related failures.  Perhaps he can start by reading the words of Malik Rahim, the former Black Panther and recent Green Party candidate for New Orleans City Council.  A resident of the Algiers district of New Crleans, Rahim bore witness to the systematic failure on the part of local, state and federal authorities to protect citizens both before and immediately after Katrina's impact:

'This is criminal': Malik Rahim reports from New Orleans

San Francisco Bayview, News Report, Malik Rahim, Sep 03, 2005

New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005 - It's criminal. From what you're hearing, the people trapped in New Orleans are nothing but looters. We're told we should be more "neighborly." But nobody talked about being neighborly until after the people who could afford to leave … left.

If you ain't got no money in America, you're on your own. People were told to go to the Superdome, but they have no food, no water there. And before they could get in, people had to stand in line for 4-5 hours in the rain because everybody was being searched one by one at the entrance.

I can understand the chaos that happened after the tsunami, because they had no warning, but here there was plenty of warning. In the three days before the hurricane hit, we knew it was coming and everyone could have been evacuated.

We have Amtrak here that could have carried everybody out of town. There were enough school buses that could have evacuated 20,000 people easily, but they just let them be flooded. My son watched 40 buses go underwater - they just wouldn't move them, afraid they'd be stolen.

People who could afford to leave were so afraid someone would steal what they own that they just let it all be flooded. They could have let a family without a vehicle borrow their extra car, but instead they left it behind to be destroyed.

There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup trucks, all of them armed, and any young Black they see who they figure doesn't belong in their community, they shoot him. I tell them, "Stop! You're going to start a riot."

[...]

People whose homes and families were not destroyed went into the city right away with boats to bring the survivors out, but law enforcement told them they weren't needed. They are willing and able to rescue thousands, but they're not allowed to.

Every day countless volunteers are trying to help, but they're turned back. Almost all the rescue that's been done has been done by volunteers anyway.

[...]

It's not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.

There's military right here in New Orleans, but for three days they weren't even mobilized. You'd think this was a Third World country.

I'm in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, the only part that isn't flooded. The water is good. Our parks and schools could easily hold 40,000 people, and they're not using any of it.

This is criminal. These people are dying for no other reason than the lack of organization. (full article)

Perhaps it’s fair to say that no country can absolutely guarantee the safety of it’s people in the face of large scale natural disasters.  But consider that when Hurricane Dennis (another category 4 hurricane) roared through the Caribbean in early July, the city of Havana, Cuba quickly evacuated over 600,000 residents to shelters and safe areas.  Despite receiving a direct hit from Dennis, the death toll in Havana was less than 20.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Director Michael D. Brown still think they have done a good job up to now.  Who is going to tell these guys the bad news?