While Bush skirts around the nation raising money for campaigns and commemorating disasters with phony photo-ops, it's anybody's guess when the next disaster will strike.
Photo-ops for Katrina, photo-ops for 9/11. Rumors of a new war scheduled for after election day - which will certainly require its own phony photo-ops, and maybe even a plastic turkey for Thanksgiving Day.
What happens when there are so many disaster anniversaries that our dear leader has no time for anything other than disaster anniversary photo-ops? Who will raise millions for the Dark Side?
Some people say the real threat to the nation is not from the terrorists without, but from our own government's failure to invest in even the basic maintenance of our infrastructure.
The American Society of Civil Engineers says we should worry. But we knew that.
WASHINGTON — A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.
None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad — if not worse — as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch (www.christianbeckner.com).
The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.
"I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm," said Casey Dinges, the society's managing director of external affairs.
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