"Let's all be clear about one thing," writes Josh Marshall. "President Bush has now put us on notice, the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort is going to be run as a patronage and political operation," the same way Iraq is, and with the same disgusting corporate players - Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Shaw Group, Bechtel, the entire roster of carpetbaggers and opportunists who have soaked and defrauded the American people in the past, treating the bamboozled American taxpayer as an oblivious cash cow. Disaster and human suffering is considered an "opportunity" for the likes of Joe Allbaugh, Bush's former campaign manager and former head of FEMA. As if to demonstrate political patronage and cronyism knows no bounds, Bechtel's CEO was named to Bush's Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy was put in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
