While the administration claims to be bringing democracy

to the benighted populations of the middle east,

at home the United States sees the spirit and the practice of genuine democracy more threatened than at any time since . . .  the 19th century.

At the heart of this “conservative” ideology has been a sustained attack

on government, which is habitually derided as bureaucracy.

Government budgets have been cut,

government servants humiliated

 and harassed.

Is it any wonder that the efficacy of government has suffered,

in Baghdad and on the Gulf coast?

In both cases, the tooth-clenched “resolve” the president is always talking about has not proved a substitute for efficiency and generosity.

[And who among us has forgotten the 'stingy' response to the tsunami?]

Dare we hope that the truly lasting importance of the hurricane

will be to revive the news media’s independence,

and to alert the Democratic party to the full spectrum of dangers in giving unchecked power

to a shallow president,

corporate interests,

and a limited political and ideological clique?