http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702341.htmlFloods Scour the Political Landscape, Too
By Tina Brown
Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page C01
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New York may have superficially recovered since 9/11, but the Bush victory in the election last year left a hangover of self-doubt that drained the city's mojo. Katrina's perfect meteorological and political storm has at least blown away that mood. New York's sullen sense of carrying around a deviant secret -- that President Bush is an empty flight suit -- has gone with the wind.
If 9/11 was Bush's Woodstock, Katrina is his Altamont -- the place where his ability to unite people behind a flurry of flag-waving came to look like the hollow sham it always was. John Edwards's mantra of Two Americas doesn't sound so corny now that Bush's soaring vision of democracy on the march has suddenly been laid as bare as an abandoned Superdome where the toilets are overflowing.
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The twin towers are still a gaping hole in the ground fought over by greedy real estate agents, prima donna architects and culture warriors distractedly arbitrated by a Republican governor preoccupied with national political ambitions. The current plans for a third-rate office building on top of a bunker with a censored museum seems like a strange advertisement for freedom. But perhaps it suits the city's mood of lingering disappointment after 9/11's squandered goodwill. Osama bin Laden's outrage goes unavenged while we continue to suck wind in Baghdad.
But now, in Katrina's aftermath, there's something different in the air: the scent of insurrection. The needless torment of New Orleans has reignited the dormant passions of the election. E-mails are flying again between friends who've been out of touch for months, enclosing Web links to new polemics of disgust. The big donors with wallet fatigue after John Kerry's loss are ready to write checks again, big time, for any Democrat who shows courage.
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