Failing Grades

Well of course they are getting failing grades. Everything the neoconservatives claim to do for people is mere show. A spectacle. During the Bush-Kerry debates, Kerry pointed out that our shipping ports, our biggest vulnerability, were not secure. Bush's reply? We have spent $30 Billion on ports. Kerry missed a golden opportunity to point out that the Republicans were just throwing money at problems and not accomplishing anything.

They may have allocated or dispersed the money in contracts to cronies, who have delayed payment to those who have done some minimal work. Or siphoned off the money for some other project. But our ports were not secured then, and they aren't secured now, according to the 911 Commission and its successor.

Of course, this is not an isolated incident. Witness the vast sums of contract money that have gone astray under the control of Halliburton in Iraq, and in our South, already, in the aftermath of Katrina.

And of course, the Democrats immediately seized on the report. The Bush administration means only to control public opinion to stay in power, not to actually do anything that's constructive or effective.