Even as the floodwaters were sluicing back over the levees, Hurricane Katrina reached back to claim yet another victim. Michael Brown, the embattled head of FEMA, finally succumbed to the axe. The spin-doctors will say he resigned, but, hey, they’ll also argue that Mayor Nagin should have single-handedly saved every soul in New Orleans with three rickety school buses and a day old McGriddle sandwich. What no one refutes, however, is that Brown, by week’s end, had few supporters – Democrats thought he had rescued too few of the storm’s initial survivors while Republicans felt he had brought out too many. Upon leaving a Houston shelter packed with evacuees that “were underprivileged anyway” (read: black), a rankled Barbara Bush confided, “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas.”

Incredibly, it was only one week earlier that the President was commending his FEMA director: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” But then things quickly began to sour: First, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott lost his house and began spewing invectives like “overwhelmed” and “not capable.” The White House followed with a rancid etouffee of command and control failures, blockaded volunteers, depleted national guard units, stranded victims and floating corpses; the entire offering generously garnished with tufts of hubris and what I like to call dumb-fuckery. Finally, it was uncovered that Brown had fudged his resumé. Fabricating a faculty position at Central State University (where he had been a lowly student), Brown claimed directorship of a charity that had never heard of him, and used alchemy to turn a student internship into a stint as an assistant city manager. With criticism swelling, Brown was demoted back to Washington to dole out no-bid Halliburton contracts and, according to Homeland Reichmarshal Michael Chertoff, to help prepare for the next disaster. But with Hurricane Ophelia bearing down on all those white Republicans in the Carolinas, the President decided to pull the plug altogether.

Which is what he should do in Iraq. “Winning,” irrespective of shifting connotations, is so far outside the realm of possibility that it fails to merit consideration. If you’re looking, it’s right over there, next to “Peace with Honor.” So let’s bail out now. The insurgency, without question Donald Rumsfeld’s most effective creation, has gained so much purchase that it no longer needs bullets or bombs to exact its toll. The mere hint of a suicide attack can suffice. Just last month, a rumor whispered at a mosque turned a Shiite religious procession into a full-blown stampede, resulting in the death of 965 Iraqis. The Parliament, having has twice missed deadlines to ratify a constitution, must do so by October 15 or be sent, one way or another, into oblivion.

That Republicans are thieves and liars is no surprise – Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher recently pardoned a handful of indicted aides while his Ohio counterpart, Bob Taft, was convicted of violating financial disclosure (read: bribery) laws. Tom DeLay… well, you get the point. Yet, in spite of this, the Republicans are habitually returned to office because a majority of citizens believe they are best equipped to protect us. As Dick Cheney cautioned with his condescending asperity, only they can shield us from terrorists, shelter us from nature, and safeguard us from our own government. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nearly two thousand Americans have died in a war both unnecessary and grossly mismanaged, sent into harm’s way by politicians whose only combat experience consisted of watching a few John Wayne movies. The feckless response to Katrina was orchestrated by a man whose tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association qualified him only to the extent that he was no stranger to knee-deep shit. All the while, elected officials, temporarily thwarted from pillaging your social security account, must content themselves with their newfound ability to seize your property on a lark.

Despite the palpable tension at John Roberts’ hearing (apologizing for interrupting, Sen. Joseph Biden told the Judge, “Go ahead. Go ahead and continue not to answer.”), his confirmation is all but assured. And then watch out. Within a year or two, the reach of government will be truly limitless: you will inexorably lose your right to die or have an abortion (necessitated by your inability to obtain contraceptives), to a commandment-free courtroom (necessitated by your refusal to pray at school) and to fair hiring practices (necessitated by the color of your parents’ skin).

Whatever scrutiny is given to what Roberts says, or more tellingly, doesn’t say, he is free, after donning his gold-striped robe, to do whatever he damn well pleases. Clarence Thomas promised the Judiciary Committee, under oath, that his “view is that there is a right to privacy in the 14th Amendment,” but apparently abandoned that perspective during Griswold: “And just like Justice Stewart, I ‘can find [nowhere in the Constitution a] general right of privacy,’” “In other words,” Thomas later elucidated, “the government is a priori unencumbered when telling a given individual, ‘I’m gonna’ get you, sucka’.’”