Today, Aftermath Ike hit Texas. And part of me wanted to scream, “Jesus, why don’t you put me in charge of FEMA? I would have gotten those fucking trucks full of assets out of Fort Worth and San Antonio. I would have said, “Hey, drive on the feeder roads once you get to the 610 Loop, because anyone who’s ever been to Houston knows the highways flood. It’s not rocket science to drive those truck from San Antonio.”

Here’s the deal: journalists are pissed because they haven’t been allowed to observe the Bolivar (pronounced Boll-i-ver) Peninsula. This is where the worst of the worst took place. And who doesn’t have a good answer for why no one’s been allowed in? That’s right. Our very own Governor Good Hair, Mr. 39% himself.

Then there’s the finger pointing. FEMA says the state was supposed to distribute the assets. Texas says FEMA was supposed to do it. Then somebody (I can’t keep this straight) says, “No, the local governments are supposed to do this?” WHAH? The local governments are supposed to handle getting the ice and water and MREs to their dazed citizens, the ones who didn’t leave and didn’t, for whatever reason, get themselves a 72 hour supply of food and water?˜ Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.

There are different ways of telling every story, I suppose. Looking through the Houston Chronicle blog, lots of grocery stores are opening up (with limited supplies), 500,000 people have power now, and you could drive on the highway downtown. (But why would you want to go there? The streets are littered with glass.) Latest update–four Starbucks are open. (Any idea how 4 Starbucks are going to handle 2 million people?) Apparently, the American way of life will continue in Houston.

But Aftermath Ike is here for a while in Galveston and Orange and Port Arthur. And part of recovering from the recovery will be talking about performance of officials like Rick Perry who call the people who didn’t evacuate “knuckleheads.”

Shit! After all the reading and watching and thinking, I can’t find the heartbreaking quote, the one that would damn Rick Perry to an even hotter hell than the one he’s headed for. It was an interview with a woman who stayed behind, one of the non-evacuating knuckleheads. And why didn’t she evacuate? She’d already spent all her money evacuating her family for Gustav. She couldn’t afford to evacuate. There are other reasons people don’t evacuate, some of them pretty pathetic. But to lump all of these people, these dazed and devastated people, together as knuckleheaded, well, I really am shocked that Perry didn’t get the VP nod. Guess you can’t put lipstick on a pig..

So, in quick succession, here are a few clips that my favorite sites posted this morning. I’m beginning to see my role as a collage artist. Obviously, there are different types of blogs out there. There are the great journalistic ones such as Talking Points Memo. Then there’s the hardest working man in the blogosphere–Andrew Sullivan–my new bff. Who knew that a gay conservative British Catholic who actually chooses to live in Washington and I would have so much in common? And then there’s my hero John Coles. Another lapsed Republican. Wait a minute! Is there a theme here? Is this all just me working through my Republican heritage?

Back to Mr. Clean (who would be a terrific sponsor for All My (Grand)Children).

Clip Number Five: In Which Our Heroine’s Aging Guardian Tells Us What Needs Cleaning

Thanks to Talking Points Memo for posting this. I can’t watch CNN; thanks for saving me the trouble.

But wait, there’s more.

Clip Number Six: In Which God Speaks

Speaking from down here 150 miles outside Aftermath Ike (but in its actual command center), I can tell you that there’s a difference between a job for Mr. Clean and a once in a century event.

*I’ve been reading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe this summer. I’m still in the first third of the book (John Quincy Adams’ presidency), but it’s already made me think a great deal to how communication technology transforms the political process. Too much to go into now, but I’ll add that this is the first presidential election with a robust Internet. Meaning, the Internet is the primary driver for political communication in 2008. It hadn’t reached this level in 2004 or 2006 (but the George Allen macaca remark was the harbinger). The other communication medium that’s dominating 2008 is the cell phone, obviously. Basically, between the two, new information is ubiquitous. You can’t escape it. Hence, Palinmania.