The immediate response to Katrina (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) was pretty strong evidence that the agency had become a patronage mill, a source of dead-head jobs rewarding Bushite loyalists with easy paychecks.

It should be no surprise that the awarding of contracts for dealing with the aftermath, when time was short and approval for funding was pretty much automatic, would present opportunities for fraudualent profiteering that were just too tempting to pass up.

Because the Shaw Group, one of the fattest pigs at the trough, is based in Baton Rouge, we heard a lot of crowing about how much money was "staying right here in Louisiana." As though I should be glad that so much money found its way into the pockets of a well-connected few in Baton Rouge, not only to another bunch of fatcats in Washington and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs.