So President Bush toured the site of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse yesterday doing his best to look Presidential and promising to cut red tape and rebuild the ruined bridge as quickly as possible. Meanwhile residents of New Orleans laughed cynically as they recalled Bush saying the same thing to them:

Nearly two years ago, with parts of New Orleans still under water after Hurricane Katrina, Bush made similar declarations in the French Quarter. The president’s promise was all Melanie Thompson needed to hear to bring back her family of five and begin work on their flooded home.

But today Thompson’s family is still living in a cramped trailer and awaiting aid to rebuild. Her hope and faith in government have faded and she worries for the people of Minneapolis.

“I just hope to God they come to their rescue a lot quicker than they did ours,” she said.

Granted this is just one bridge as opposed to most of a major U.S.city, but Bush has demonstrated repeatedly that he’s long on words and short on action when it comes to doing anything to help U.S. citizens who aren’t major contributors to his political party or already so rich they don’t really need any help. I’m surprised the folks in Minneapolis didn’t scream in terror and run away at the mere mention that Bush wanted to help. I mean, he’s done such a wonderful job in helping Iraq so far, let alone New Orleans.

Hey here’s an idea: Let’s stop blowing all those taxpayer dollars on unnecessary wars and devote a chunk of them to improving our nation’s infrastructure before we have any more disasters like this one. Oh wait, that’d make way too much sense for anyone in the Bush administration to even consider such an idea.

Update: I thought this summed it up pretty well:

Click to embiggen!

Found over at Truth Dig.