Four years, and it’s still shocking. Not the storm — as bad as that was — but the four years that have been squandered trying to put people’s lives and communities back together.

Lord, have mercy . . .

Lieberman took over as chair of the committee in 2006, promising on the campaign trail to get to the bottom of what happened. Of course, once he was elected, he abandoned those promises, saying he didn’t want to “play gotcha anymore.”  Which was one of the very substantive reasons why liberals objected to him retaining his gavel in 2008, it wasn’t a “purge” as some of his apologists liked to pretend.

Disasters all around.

In a move that can only be described as profoundly stupid, Senator David Vitter has placed a hold Craig Fugate’s nomination to head FEMA. The reason he is blocking the nomination of the most-qualified FEMA director ever: he wants to ease the rules for building in flood-prone areas.

When 9-11 happened, NYC let out a bunch of no bid emergrancy contracts to work on “the pile” at Ground Zero. The Commissioner of the NYC Dpet. of Investigations, the late and great Ed Kurianksy, went to then Mayor Giuliani and insisted, that since there was great chaos and confusion at Ground zero and money was just being thrown at the problem, there would be a huge opporunity for waste fraud, and abuse.

Still-President George W. Bush, looking this morning like most of America now feels, stood before the White House press corps one last time to express his undying gratitude for their piss-poor performance during his eight-years in office. From groggy start to rambling finish, it was a jaw-dropping performance.

Joe Lieberman’s campaign manager, Sean Smith, who accused Ned Lamont of hacking their website the day of the Connecticut primary in 2006, has been selected to be the spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security.

By now, everyone in America knows that the Bush administration stood by and let hundreds of black Americans drown in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But not all of Katrina’s black victims drowned. Some of them were murdered.

Shaila Dewan, whose reporting for the NYTimes on Katrina’s aftermath has been heartfelt and shattering, has an update today on NOLA’s children whose families have yet to find stability. It is a devastating indictment of lacking federal and state efforts in the hurricane’s wake.  And also a wholesale illustration of the problems facing those who work in the criminal justice, social and intervention services fields every day in every community in this country.

In her Today Show interview with Brad Pitt, Ann Curry reported that the actor told her that he and Angelina Jolie “will get married when everyone can” and that marriage should be a right for all.