Pretty strong stuff from Bill Maher:

Now, I kid. But seriously, Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you anymore. There’s no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can’t start another war, because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard is bare, the credit card’s maxed out, and no one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished! Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest and walk away, like you did with your military service, and the oil company, and the baseball team. It’s time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How ’bout cowboy or spaceman?

Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that there’s so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in. Please don’t.

I know, I know — there’s a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church, and Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poorly, I’m surprised you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a sh*tty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky.

I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes — God does speak to you. And what He’s saying is, “Take a hint.”

Cartoonist Mark Fiore has an animation called Whoopsi Gras, about the comedy of errors that, in the end, wasn’t funny at all.

I thought it was bad when Michael Chertoff tried to shift blame to the disaster’s victims. Then Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania started talking about criminal penalties. (Later, Santorum tried to blame the National Weather Service. We can only hope he soon finds a reliable source for a better grade of crack than he’s been smoking recently.)

When Barbara Bush said things were “working very well” for poor evacuees, I joked that it was “like a great big camp-out.” House Republican Leader Tom DeLay compared the evacuation to camping out, too. He asked three boys at a temporary shelter, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”

Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck calls the hurricane survivors in New Orleans “scumbags,” and manages to get in a shot at the families of 9/11 victims, too.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert would like to bulldoze New Orleans. The Wall Street Journal reported that Rep. Richard Baker of Baton Rouge said, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” (Baker says he was misquoted.)

But some see a bright future for New Orleans. James Reiss, a wealthy resident and city official, was quoted in a Wall Street Journal story:

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. “Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically,” he says. “I’m not just speaking for myself here. The way we’ve been living is not going to happen again, or we’re out.”

Do you suppose that the way we’ll get “fewer poor people” is by lifting people out of poverty? No, I didn’t think so, either.

Katrina has certainly unmasked a lot of people.