NATTERING NABOBS OF NEGATIVISM

Where's Spiro T. Agnew when the GOP really needs him?

Well, to be specific, he's at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Md., his residence for the past nine years. He's rested, if not tanned and ready. He's dead, Jim.

But the former vice president of the United States still has plenty to offer his grand ol' party, especially in the art of nastiness. No one attacked the Nixon Administration and got away unscathed. Not while Agnew was around.

All this talk about the Bush Administration ignoring the plight of poor black people in New Orleans? Remember Agnew: "Once you've seen one ghetto, you've seen them all."

Those who say Bush didn't work fast enough are nothing but "nattering nabobs of negativism."

People who claim FEMA was better under Bill Clinton are “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

The liberal Hollywood types donating money, supplied and time are nothing but an "effete corps of of impudent snobs."

The 22 Poles missing in the rubble? Agnew is succinct on this one: "Polacks." Any Japanese person of girth who died would be dismissed as a "fat Jap."

Look, the Bush Administration is already working overtime to blame the pitiful response to Katrina on local and state officials (who happen to be, quite coincidentally, Democrats). But they won't 'fess to their base reasons. As repugnant as he was, Agnew would at least have had the brass to say it loud and proud.