Two things about Laura Bush’s official White House briefing room statement on the “inept” response by the Burmese government to the recent cyclone:

1. It’s absolutely none of our business.

2. What the heck is the president’s wife doing making U.S. foreign policy?! The cult of the presidency, as Derb writes about today, is bad enough, but at least that’s an actual government office. Maybe the republic really is doomed.