Bush speaks from Jackson Square

George W. Bush stood beneath a statue of Andrew Jackson in the French Quarter and gave a speech.

I have never understood why such a huge fuss was made about the 'Bullhorn moment' of September 14, 2001. I had always thought of it as a Bull**** moment, as most other moments of this presidency. But for whatever it was worth, it was at least novel. He tried to repeat it this time, but there was no audience, there was no spontaneity, and the bullhorn, as someone wrote, was buried in the water.

The obvious thing that came out of it was the fact that a few hundred billion dollars would be spent on New Orleans. The deficit would further skyrocket, of course, but the old conservative thought of prevention being better than cure has never been popular with the Bush crowd.

The more insidious thing was the explicit statement that the armed forces would now have a greater role. What this means is not clear, but it sounded ominous to me, more like the statement after a coup in some West African country.