Where the Bible Belt came unbuckled

Part elegy for a lost city, part screed about the preznit's fiddling while Rome burns: catch Howell Raines' special report in The Guardian.

Excerpts:

Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude.

and:

The populism of Huey Long was financially corrupt, but when it came to the welfare of people, it was caring. The church-going cultural populism of George Bush has given the United States an administration that worries about the house of Saud and the welfare of oil companies while the poor drown in their attics and their sons and daughters die on foreign deserts.

Shudder.