Trying to give benefit of the doubt ...

... but not succeeding very well. I was floored when one of the teachers told me about Barbara Bush's wonderfully sensitive comments. But, to make sure her comments weren't taken out of context, I went straight to the source of American Public Media show Marketplace, which is where she made her statement during the interview that: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality ... And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Well, on Marketplace they have the raw tape of her visit, just so you can hear for yourself. What doesn't come across in the soundbite you read in the papers is how much she spends the time gushing about how great Houston is, discussing what she's heard: "The children and the adults who will tell you about the dead bodies they saw in New Orleans -- very moving" ... all of this, though, while she's half-chuckling. But mostly, it's all about how proud she is of Houston, and Texas, and how great a place it is.

Curiosity .... by any chance, did she have any influence on how "so many of these people" came to be "underprivileged anyway"?

I guess what kills me the most is the "anyway" .... it adds such a level of dismissiveness to the whole situation. "Well, since they're already poor and homeless, they've got nothing to lose, so really --- this is actually a great solution. They've got shelter, and haven't lost anything!"