old Satire Shmatire

It's hard to stop watching the do-gooder show Extreme Home Makeover. What's not to love about this crew of much too good looking designers picking people in need and building them new homes, or remaking (usually in its entirety) their existing homes. The stories about the deserving people are often heartwarming and heartwrenching for people with too many problems in their lives.

As aptly pointed out in an LA Times article, there is also something quite crass about the weekly parade of deserving families. Shows like this help people and make sure to tell you they help them.

Finally the Bush administration in an attempt to make up for the continuing Katrina response failures, is bringing out the big guns. Laura Bush is going to be appearing on the show helping victims of the hurricane in Biloxi, Miss. I suppose its politics as usual but that word crass just seems so right. I particularly like the descriptions of the event in Biloxi where the producers told all the victims to act surprised when she appeared to hand out water.

This aid brought to you by Sears, Craftsman, ABC, the Whitehouse, and so on and so on.