Like the toxic sludge that permeated much of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, the sludge in the White House continues to contaminate.

As far back as 2002, following the infamous pretzel-choking incident, I suggested that the inarticulate leader of the free world, and perhaps not-so-dry alcoholic, garnered his illusion of strength from an obsequious, corporate-controlled media juggernaut. Little did I know back then that whores like Maggie Gallagher, Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon were actually being paid by the Administration to hawk their coverage.

On the eve of Patrick Fitzgerald's closing of the investigation into the Valerie Plame outing, it’s comical to hear Republicans preemptively raising the “technicality” argument to defend the despicable actions of despicable cowards. Considering the reverence under which the politically pious held independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, technicalities are the moral threads with which prosecutors weave sordid indictments.

Yet before gloating over the rapid demise of the most blatantly corrupt Administration in living memory, it’s prudent to recall that I also though it was all over for Team Bush prior to the re-election of Herr Reborn, not for a second realizing that the Rove machine would so quickly turn a genuine war veteran into a sniveling, boring coward and prop up Daddy’s National Guard Absentee of the Year as the war hero. So successfully, mind you, that it actually worked.

The first unraveling of major consequence was the response to Hurricane Katrina. Led by the accountability-lacking, finger-pointing, pathetically inadequate clown, FEMA head Michael Brown, who Bush commended for doing a good job. (How Bush knew, given that he was strumming a guitar in San Diego while New Orleans starved and drowned, is a mystery, but one not worth solving). Brown’s equally unaccountable boss, Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, like Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is still on the job. Their Medals of Honor are probably being engraved as I write.

Americans were genuinely shocked by the federal response to Katrina. The debacle in Iraq was one thing, but the whole point of the failed war launched on cooked intelligence was supposedly to keep terrorism from American soil. The Hurricane response demonstrated that in the event of a chemical, biological or other such attack on American soil, September 11th had taught us absolutely nothing. Dangerously unprepared, our stripped-thin military couldn’t even reach the Convention Center in New Orleans, let alone ward off terrorists abroad or penetrate caves in Tora Bora.

To make matters worse, was the humiliating removal by forced resignation of Michael Brown (presumably for having done such a good job) and the embarrassing spectacle where he promised a partisan congressional committee that he would not point fingers at anyone and then proceeded to claim that his biggest mistake was not recognizing how dysfunctional Louisiana was.

When Hurricane Rita, some two weeks later hit the Gulf Coast again, George W. Bush went out of his way to create the illusion of compassion that was about as convincing as Pat Buchanan weeping at Yad Vashem. Countless jet fuel-guzzling photo-ops later, the President scored a whopping 2% approval rating among blacks according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Auntie Condi and Uncle Colin, notwithstanding.

In a gifted moment, the President told reporters that his incessant trips to Texas were to enable him to better understand the complicated relationship between state and local officials. This would have been absurd even if he had not been the governor of Texas prior to becoming President, although not surprising. What could he possibly learn if he already was, to coin Harriet Miers, the best governor ever?

With mounting speculation that his Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby (if not the sneering, catheter-touting, clogged artery himself) was not only involved in the Valerie Plame outing, but lied to the independent counsel to shelter Cheney from suspicion and was “embedded” with New York Times war cheerleader, Judith Miller, the icy master of non-disclosure remains trapped in his undisclosed location.

Karen Hughes, the inner-circle soccer mom who abandoned the President in his first term to mollycoddle her teenage son, was rehired to sell Classic American Bumpkinism to the Middle East, where with clueless diplomacy she embarked on a “listening” trip (ala Hillary) on which she insulted and offended women from Saudi Arabia to Turkey and beyond.

Enter Harriet Miers – the most unqualified sycophant ever! The woman George W. Bush has nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Conner on the Supreme Court is a shallow, forgetful, inconsistent brownnose who believes the control of women’s bodies ought to be shaped by men with delusions of piety, and in imaginary, sandal-clad martyrs watching protectively from the heavens.

Not since Mr. Bush himself was appointed to the Presidency has a nominee been so extraordinarily unqualified to hold a position. When Monica sucked President Clinton’s cock she ended up with a soiled dress and a lousy job at the Pentagon. Harriet Miers kissed George W. Bush’s ass and was offered a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Speaking of brownnoses, the indictment of Former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, (who should be sentenced to life for the Frivolous Fawn coloring of his hair accentuated by ill-matched pancake make-up rivaling Tammy Faye Baker), whose shit-eating grin in his mug shot last week as he was forced to turn himself in at the sheriff's office in Houston, was fingerprinted, photographed and released on $10,000 bail on conspiracy and money laundering charges, simply underscores the frivolity, contempt and disdain this former roach exterminator both exercises and elicits.

Then there’s the SEC investigation of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, under fire and a federal investigation for a suspiciously-timed stock sales, who unlike Martha Stewart, has no balls. The SEC is probing a June sale of stock in HCA Inc., the for-profit healthcare giant founded by his family, just before the stocks tanked.

Amidst such sin, scandal and corruption, the ever pious Democratic Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, returned a $1000 donation to her Senate campaign to Hustler Magazine founder, Larry Flynt. On September 27, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, chaired by New York’s other Senator, Chuck Schumer, also returned a $2,500 check to Flynt. From Hillary, no less, the wife of the man who taught every child across the globe what a blowjob is and was inexperienced enough to think Jewish girls swallowed. And unless Chelsea was conceived immaculately, even Senator Clinton, at least once, fucked.

If I recall correctly, it was this kind of hypocritical, holier-than-thou crap that not only resulted in the impeachment of her husband, but so utterly engrossed and distracted Republicans and Democrats alike that more people knew who Linda Tripp was than Osama Bin Laden. All the while, Al Qaeda plotted and prepared.

How fucking quickly we forget.

Clinton Fein can be emailed at clinton@annoy.com