First, to explain the title...

President George Bush was visiting a small business which makes waterproof computer equipment for medical use, when he had some problems typing. From the AP story:

"During the tour, Bush typed on a white keyboard immersed in a pan of water. He wrote: 'G Tro N was the first president.' Clifton Broumand, company president, joked that Bush, who apparently was trying to write 'George Washington was the first president,' might want to practice his typing."

In other news from "G Tro N," D.C., FEMA appears to have been taken over by laywers who care more about protecting the agency's rear end than about U.S. citizens' health.

This falls into the realm of shocking and disgusting. From the Washington Post story:

At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.

FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.

Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

Committee Chairman Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."

Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said FEMA obstructed the 10-month committee investigation and "mischaracterized the scope and purpose" of the agency's actions.

"FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency's litigation position," Davis said. The documents "make it appear FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety."

About 60,000 households affected by Katrina remain in trailers.

I agree with Waxman. It is sickening.

More news from Waxman's committee in "G Tro N" -- while looking into the Bush White House politicizing everything they touch, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is now under the magnifying glass for making appearances at Republican campaign events in 2006. While the whole thing may wind up being nothing more than a tempest in a teapot, there was one telling quote buried in the story. Telling, because Republicans so often whine about the "elitism" of the "elitist" Democrats.

Here's the White House liaison for the ONDCP, showing what non-elitists the Republicans are:

"The director [of the ONDCP] and the deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them."

Middle America? "God awful places?" Bet that won't play in Peoria.

Speaking of things that won't play in Peoria, Larry Flynt's got a few more politicians in his sights, in his neverending battle against sexual hypocrisy in "G Tro N." Political Wire has the story.

Finally, I began this piece mocking Bush, so I will end by doing the same. Someone needs to take Bush aside and quietly explain to him that while "troops" is acceptible shorthand for "U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Guardsmen," the singular usage "troop" does not mean one person.

"A troop" is still a collective noun. It's like saying "a herd" or "a group." Different militaries define "troop" in different ways, the dictionary definition being:

Military. an armored cavalry or cavalry unit consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group.

Or (in European militaries) the equivalent to a U.S. platoon.

But check the dictionary listing if you don't believe me -- there is not one single definition or synonym listed that is a singular noun. They're all collective nouns.

Now here's President Bush from his press conference last week (and this isn't the first time he's made this mistake):

People don't want our troops in harm's way if that which we are trying to achieve can't be accomplished. I feel the same way. I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, I'm sending your kid into combat, but I don't think we can achieve the objective. I wouldn't do that to a parent or a husband or wife of a soldier.

-- Chris Weigant