George Bush flew to Florida to see what he could see. It looked like a hurricane had been there. He forgot to stuff the sock in his mouth that his handlers like him to wear in public, so he had to put his foot in it instead.

Conjuring up his glory days in the National Guard and his triumphant landing on that flight deck, the President did his best to have a thought.

We choppered over and saw the devastation of this area. A lot of people's lives are turned upside down," the president said during a brief visit to some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods on the Gulf Coast. "We've got ice and water moving in. Trailers for people to live in are moving in. The state is providing security so that people can have peace of mind that their neighborhoods will be safe. There's a lot of compassion moving in the area; the Red Cross is here."

A lot of compassion moving in the area?

He gave it another try.

What I'm telling you is that there's a lot of help moving into this part of the world. It's going to take a while to rebuild it," he said. "But the government's job is to help people help rebuild their lives, and that's what's happening."

Coming from a person who had a mind, that last sentence could have caused a dip in the Dow, as Wall Street pondered the pillaging of their "nest eggs" by the thief of government largesse. Fortunately for the markets, everyone knew he didn't mean it. In fact, everyone knew he didn't know what he meant.

Meanwhile brother Jeb had to face the fact that the people of the area had voted heavily Republican. Hoping to ward off speculation that Hurricane Charley was God's punishment for having elected him governor, he peered into the inscrutable ways of the Almighty.

"God doesn't follow the linear projections of computer models," Bush said outside the emergency management center, whose roof caved in during the hurricane. "This is God's way of telling us that he's almighty and we're mortal."

Well, Jeb, if this is a message from God, are you sure we ought to fix it?