Hurricanes happen. I’m not going to blame the guy for a hurricane. There is nothing he could have done to stop that. I’m not going to call him a racist, either. I don’t think he’s insensitive to any certain race of people.But the mere fact that President Bush did not even understand what Hurricane Katrina was until 24 hours after the fact-long after most anyone else in the world-is inarguably disconcerting. How can a president, who has already seen so much disaster during his time in office, become so detached from his own country, the country he vowed to serve and protect?I don’t doubt the man’s motives. I think he is trying to defend his country and do what is best for us. I seriously think he needs to re-examine his actions, however. For starters, we’re at war right now, and I don’t think anyone, including Bush, knows when we’re leaving Iraq. He created a mess there, one that might not be cleaned up for quite some time. It’s an ideological war and ideological mess. Ideological messes, such as Israel and Ireland, take decades to clean up. Decades. Whether or not we’ll be fighting this war for decades is debatable-but whether or not it will take so long to clean up is not.That leaves Bush in the middle of a war, a war he started with what may have seemed appropriate motives at the time, but actions that have proven faulty. After what happened with Katrina, anyone who would call our country prepared to face another terrorist attack is insane. Bush has concentrated all of his, and our, efforts overseas as if “nation-building” is going to set an example and make these people like us. They hate us. They always will. “Setting an example” is foolish. Our country is completely open to attack right now-as it always was-and doubtfully ready to handle it. We’re apparently less ready than we were four years ago. Why do we have a Department of Homeland Security that can’t do anything for our homeland? If the commander-in-chief doesn’t know what’s going on around him, I don’t know how quickly any other level of government will respond, or how prepared they will be. When Bush received a phone call from the governor of Louisiana, saying that the state desperately needed help, saying, “We need everything you’ve got,” he went to bed. He didn’t order any military to move ASAP into a city that was being destroyed by what seemed to be the wrath of God. He went to bed. He was on vacation in San Diego, preparing to give a speech defending his actions concerning Iraq the next morning. Bush has blown it completely. He is still fighting a war proven unnecessary by its inability to help defend our country, even with the creation of a department to do that exact thing. Bush is in no way prepared to deal with another attack of any kind. He has also proven himself far, far too detached from the American people to be fit as a leader. I would not blame a hurricane on him. Forces of nature are forces of nature. Blaming Bush for not even noticing a hurricane, though, is a far, far different story. Marshall Johnson is a junior studying [email protected]