Apparently Rovegate has given the White House press corps a taste for raw meat. They’re asking White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan the really tough questions:

Q: I just want to follow up on David’s questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President.

I’ve heard a recording of the exchange. McClellan sounds like he’s asking a question rather than making a statement.

In this administration, the buck stops anywhere but the president.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman:

[I]f 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush’s back, Katrina’s put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina — and all the rot and misplaced priorities it’s exposed here at home.

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending “intelligent design” as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

…

The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn’t happen on Mr. Bush’s watch — that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency — without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.