Bush can claim he’s done something for New Orleans since Katrina. After all, the hurricanes have stopped, right?

Three months before the new hurricane season begins, little work has been done to restore the levees and protect the damaged city. The work that the Army Corps of Engineers is doing does seem to fulfill a Bush promise. They are likely to have the levees rebuilt to pre-Katrina height by June 1.

However, according to a report in the Washington Post, “two teams of independent experts monitoring the $1.6 billion reconstruction project say large sections of the rebuilt levee system will be substantially weaker than before the hurricane hit.”

So the levees will be there. They will appear to be protecting the city. But New Orleans will be even more vulnerable than before because short cuts and shoddy work are being done in order give the appearance of repair. Money that should be used for domestic security is tied up in foreign adventurism. It’s easier to funnel money to Bush cronies with wars than reconstruction. Auditing Halliburton’s theft in a foreign war is so much harder than documenting theft done domestically.

Had Katrina hit in September 2004, rather than 2005, Bush would have been drummed out of office. If another hurricane hits New Orleans this summer and the city again floods, mid-term elections should easily steer away from the Republicans.