Mike Carlton hits the mark again:

EVEN when Dubya finally worked out that the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina meant cutting short his holiday in Texas, he still thought everything could be sorted out by some snappy television sound bites.

This is not surprising. He evidently believes the Iraq war will be won in much the same way. All it takes is a furrowed brow, an air of halting sincerity, an exhortation for God to bless America and, wham bam, mission accomplished.

Way beyond any other presidency we have seen, the Dubya Administration is a triumph of spin over substance. Or it was. The quagmire in Iraq could be sold as the patriotic response to September 11, far away, democracy fighting back.

But the devastation in New Orleans is down home, and the staggering incompetence of the response to it has been there for all to see. Reading and watching the US media, the signs are that ordinary, decent Americans are realising, at last, what a posturing loon they have in the Oval Office.

But Dubya sails on, unfazed. Perhaps he gets it from his mother, the formidable Barbara Bush, who went to inspect thousands of refugees jammed into the Houston Astrodome.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she bubbled to a radio interviewer. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Mike Carlton