La-li, la, la, happy-happy disasters

The GOP puts on a happy face and traipses lightly on its feet. They're the valiumed-up martini-filled rich Beverly Hills shoppers of the American political scene (don't forget the Chihuahua in the Gucci bag -- "you cute little snookums").

You might think the outrage over the stumbling response to Hurricane Katrina would make senators want to rip the lid off the federal government and take a good hard look at why rescue efforts were tragically late in the Gulf Coast, even if an investigation could get uncomfortable for President Bush. After all, lawmakers have good reason to be as "pissed" as the New Orleans mayor said he was. They have spent the last four years significantly reorganizing the federal government to respond to big disasters. They have doled out billions of tax dollars to get it done. And still thousands of people remained stranded for days in Katrina's wake, many perishing for a lack of help. But as the Senate swung back into business on Tuesday for the first time since the cataclysmic storm, GOP senators responded to the criticism with a uniform line that Congress should not get into the business of laying blame for any possible failures. There are always going to be unhappy people with any disaster relief effort, they said.