TALE OF TWO TEXANS. Inspired by this mash note from Time's Blog Of The Year, I remembered that one of the finest moments in Spike Lee's masterful HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina came when Douglas Brinkley -- who's much more shrill, and gratifyingly so, as a talking head here than he's ever been on Jim Lehrer's show -- recalls the visit that President Lyndon Johnson made to New Orleans the day after Hurricane Betsy made landfall in 1965. Even considering the inevitable Lyndonisms -- "This is your president. I'm here to help you!" -- it didn't make for a very flattering presidential comparison last year, when David Remnick summoned it up, or today, for that matter. Anyway, here's a link to show you what a real president does, and how a real Texan behaves.
--Charles P. Pierce