The most interesting thing [Zogby] said [at a recent college appearance] was the suggestion that in the next several years, he thinks that Hurricane Katrina will prove to have a bigger effect on American politics than the September 11 attacks. He said that, in his opinion, it will lead to a re-envisioning of the relationship between people and the government, similar to the New Deal or the conservative revolution, and that the party that positions itself to take advantage of that will dominate American politics for the next couple of decades. Unfortunately, he was a little vague about what form the re-envisioning would take, other than that it will involve some form of universal health care, and something to do with government assistance to community and charitable organizations. It's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure I really buy it.

It should be obvious that the party best positioned to take advantage of this is the Democratic Party -- it was, after all, the Republican Party that was totally in charge when the mess occured. That's something we really should be pounding on, that the Bush Administration has been a total and utter disaster when it comes to one of the most basic functions of government: providing services, and that Katrina wasn't a fluke, it was simply the most flagrant case among many failures.

I know that Democrats are understandly shy of playing the Competency Card, because of the way Dukakis screwed up using it, but we can take from Zogby some insight on a better way to go about it.

Rather than emphasizing the cold and technocratic issue of competency and incompetence, let's tell everyone about our New Covenant, a new relationship between The People and Their Government as it will be run by Democrats, who care about the needs of the people, who listen to what the people are saying, and who want every man, woman and child in America to be able to live full, satisfying and healthy lives.

Government as the servant of the people -- there's a "re-envisioning" that's a radical departure from the philosophy of the Bush Failures.