Bush: Our worst president ever

But enough about Bush. I just wrote a letter to Peter King, my representative in Washington. Last time I wrote to him, he basically tried to shove canned yams up my ass in reply. Here's the new letter:

Dear Mr. King:

It has been revealed in the media (both left and right) that the man that President Bush named to head FEMA was, in fact, unqualified for emergency management. He was a political appointment (not that there's anything wrong with that - James Lee Witt was too, but he had the proper experience for the job), and it turns out that Brown's resume was also padded/falsified. I don't understand exactly how this happened, but as my representative and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, what sort of corrective steps will you be suggesting to make sure that our government is run by qualified employees in the future?

I was also shocked, and frankly somewhat puzzled, when the Secretary of the DHS, Michael Chertoff, said that he didn't think that Katrina was that bad because he picked up papers on the Tuesday after the storm and the headlines said "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet." Given that this headline did NOT appear in any newspapers, there seems to be a serious disconnect between the leaders of the DHS and, well, reality - to put it bluntly. (The fact that this imagined newspaper was repeated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Myers, is even more quizzical.)

Most experts believe that it is just a matter of time before a major storm hits us here on Long Island, causing widespread flooding and destruction from Fire Island up to the L.I.E. Like New Orleans, it may be a matter of when, not if. Do we have a damage notification system on Long Island that's better than Secretary Chertoff's imaginary newspapers? As a key member of the Committee, what will you be doing to make sure that Long Island isn't faced with the same problems that New Orleans faced? I know exactly what it's like to lose everything, as my wife's college roommate has had to abandon her home in New Orleans. I would really like to avoid the same fate for thousands of Long Islanders, but I have to tell you that the response I've seen really has me worried.

Joshua Trupin
[address and phone supplied]