"We're All New Orleans Now"

There's a great post up at The Mahablog, pulling together several recent articles on Katrina as the signal event of the Bush Administration.

Krugman says, "We're all New Orleans now," noting, as just one example, that

the number of Americans without health insurance jumped. At this point, there are 47 million uninsured people in this country, 8.5 million more than there were in 2000. Mr. Bush may think that being uninsured is no big deal — “you just go to an emergency room” — but the reality is that if you’re uninsured every illness is a catastrophe, your own private Katrina.

Yet the White House press release on the report declared that President Bush was “pleased” with the new numbers. Heckuva job, economy!

E.J. Dionne wonders why the health insurance crisis among poor and middle class Americans doesn't get more attention in the mainstream media. (Maybe it has something to do with the overwhelming influence of lobbyists and money from health care providers?)

The profound disconnect between our political and media institutions and the American public will not be automatically restored when the Republicans are thrown out of office. The failures of government these past six and a half years have convinced a lot of people that government just doesn't work and should not be counted on to fix real problems. And the media clearly is not interested in letting alternative views into the conversation.

Check out Mahablog's post -- and the comments, as well. Good stuff.