Because of his fatal tardiness, W. now has to literally promise the moon to fix New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, driving up the federal deficit and embarking on the biggest spending bonanza and government public works program since F.D.R.

In his address from the French Quarter, the president sounded like such a spendthrift bleeding heart that he is terrifying the right more than his father ever did.

Read my lips: By the time all this is over, people will be saying that Poppy was the true conservative in the family.

To believe that George Bush is a Conservative requires a mind as vacant as Bush's. Conservatives have principles; George Bush wouldn't recognize a principle if he found one engraved on a stone tablet. Conservatives revere history; George Bush invents history. Conservatives believe in limiting government; George Bush believes in limiting the people. Conservatives believe in limited power; George Bush believes in unlimited power—for himself.

Of course George Bush doesn't actually run the government, which is handled through a power-sharing arrangement between the Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals (capitalists), neither of which is Conservative as we once understood the term. The former are interested principally in power and the latter in money, though you will appreciate that there is considerable overlap.

As for "the biggest public works program" since FDR, it's unfortunate that FDR's name is even mentioned in the same breath with Bush. The public works programs of the New Deal distributed wealth through employment, was run by the government and produced lasting benefits to the infrastructure and culture of the nation.

Bush's program will redistribute wealth to the wealthiest while removing the minimum-wage requirement for the workers, will be run by the private sector and will be lucky to build a bridge for the $200 billion-plus the Congress will throw at the problems of the Gulf Coast. The one thing you can count on? There will be cost overruns.

But as Conservatives protest the government's domestic largesse, don't be surprised to see FDR's name mentioned more and more. Don't even be surprised if some hack pundit, privy to an insider interview with Karl Rove, shocks the nation with the notion that George Bush is really a liberal. After all, they're going to have to draw their support from somewhere.