It was odd seeing Bush standing in front of St. Louis Cathedral in an emptied out Jackson Square last night, delivering his speech to an audience of crickets (the ones that haven’t deserted the city) and Secret Servicemen. “I am speaking to you from the city of New Orleans, nearly empty, still partly under water and waiting for life and hope to return,” he said to a deafening silence. The church itself, which fronts one end of Jackson Square, looked like a prop; here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and where are the people?

The president himself chose his outfit from the working-man side of his wardrobe: his sleeves were rolled up, his collar was unbuttoned, he was ready to get the job done! Unfortunately he was a week or two too late, as the ever-rising bloated body count continues to remind us. Photos of Bush disembarking his helicopter earlier showed he was also wearing his work boots. He was ready to get his feet dirty, too.

Such props and costumes are the stuff of politics, of course. Kerry was mocked for wearing hunting clothes (even though he was going hunting at the time) and after Dukakis’s tank ride it’s safe to say that few presidential candidates will risk putting on a helmet again. But even while Bush has been spared the same ridicule when he goes out to cut some brush on his ranch, here in the city his administration forgot his attire seemed rather grotesque. Was he about to go digging through the mud in search of survivors? Or was it his dying presidency he hoped to revive?

Jackson Square has pleasant associations for almost anyone who has been to NO and I am no exception. I proposed to my wife there; William Faulkner lived a stone’s throw from the spot where Bush stood. To see a living locale reduced to backdrop status is sad especially when the man in the foreground so utterly failed the people who once lived there. People will return to New Orleans, of course, just as Bush will return to the White House. Whether he can get anything done there in the years to come remains to be seen. The Katrina disaster has revealed the theatrics for what they are and coast to coast, in states blue and red, a lot of people were left wondering who the hell was in charge. The city is real, it’s the man who is a facade.