You gotta give it to Bush’s handlers- they can play our gullible press corps like nobody else (emphasis added):

Bush Sees ‘Bright Dawn’ Emerging in Gulf

By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

Appealing to God for help with “the difficult work that lies ahead,” President Bush on Saturday painted a picture of a hopeful and vibrant future for the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast and the people there who lost family, jobs, communities and everything they own in the storm.

So these people lost family members, their jobs, and everything they own, but Bush says they have “a hopeful and vibrant future.” I know the president is supposed to be reciting a positive message here, but doesn’t this strike anyone as a tad ridiculous?

“In the life of our nation, we have seen that wondrous things are possible when we act with God’s grace,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “From the rubble of destroyed homes we can see the beginnings of vibrant new neighborhoods.”

“Especially Trent Lott’s neighborhood!”

“From the despair of lives torn asunder we can see the hope of rebirth. And from the depth of darkness we can see a bright dawn emerging over the Gulf Coast and the great city of New Orleans.”

In other words, it’s morning in America. We’re turning the corner and making progress on our hard work.

Now hold on to your seats, folks, because the article is about to make the transition from “suck” to “blow”:

With Thursday night’s speech from the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter and while marking Friday’s national day of prayer for Hurricane Katrina’s victims, the president has begun turning more frequently to religious language as he seeks to comfort suffering evacuees and guide the nation forward.

Well, if you’re gonna comfort people, using religious language is probably a lot more effective than making jokes about going on youthful drunken benders.

He often speaks easily of the strength that his faith provides him and talks humbly of his place before God.

I’d like to remind everyone that this is not a Peggy Noonan op-ed. This is in fact a fucking news report for the goddamn Associated Press.

When big moments require big rhetoric, the famously plainspoken Bush seems the most comfortable with soaring language that is tinged with religious overtones.

“Famously plainspoken!” You gotta be shitting me! Unless that’s a euphemism for “frighteningly clueless,” you’re out of your mind! And lady, Bush isn’t actually “comfortable with soaring language” during times of crisis- the words he’s using are the ones his advisors are telling him to say. See, we no longer live in the same world where Abe Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of a fucking napkin. Please get that into your thick skull.

So on Saturday, as in Friday’s brief remarks at a national prayer service at the National Cathedral, Bush asked on behalf of the nation for God’s healing and help.

And on the Seventh Day, He rested.

The bulk of Bush’s radio address was a repeat of his Thursday speech, in which he predicted one of the largest reconstruction projects ever and announced a costly package of storm relief proposals.

Noooo! The speech was a repeat? But I thought Dubya’s words came directly from the Almighty! Why, I’m surprised he didn’t start blabbering in tongues!

He was spending the weekend at Camp David, Md. _ the first extended down time since Katrina struck nearly three weeks ago.

Yeah, it’s been a whole two-and-a-half weeks since he was on vacation! It’s difficult for such a famously humble, plainspoken man to come up with such high-fallutin’ religious rhetoric without some “me” time! He needs his rest!

UPDATE: As he is wont to do, Digby gets it exactly right regarding Bush’s reconstruction plan:

The model we should look at is the Coalition Provisional Government in Iraq. That too was going to be a bold and courageous experiment in laissez-faire wet-dream governance. Instead it was the biggest boondoggle in history with more than 8.8 billion dollars officially unaccounted for and undoubtedly tens of billions more wasted on fraud and corruption.

(Incidentally, will some major paper please find out who Digby is and give him a regular op-ed column? The guy can seriously write, and he’s damn smart to boot.)

UPDATE II: See also Mark Schmitt:

I doubt that the vision dancing through Rove’s head right now is of a thriving, rebuilt New Orleans, full of life and hope. He’s probably imagining an ad with dark music, pictures of ruined houses, and a narrator saying, “Bill Nelson and Ted Kennedy put the liberal union bosses ahead of rebuilding the Gulf Coast…”

Ah, I can just picture the Katrina Victims for the Truth marching on Washington right now…