Misleading headline of the week

Award goes to CBS/AP:

Bush Requests $138B For Wars, Katrina

Amount for wars: $120 billion. Amount for Katrina: $18 billion. Not exactly congruous, are they?
As for where the $18 billion will go, Donald Powell, former Texas banker and Bush fundraiser, and now the administration's "Reconstruction Czar" in the Gulf, said details "won't be available for 10 to 30 days." But from what Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has been able to find out, she isn't impressed:

We certainly welcome additional federal assistance. But I am highly concerned that the administration's proposal, which lacks details, will put more money into dysfunctional federal bureaucracies like FEMA and won't adequately address urgent needs such as housing, levees and flood protection."

What the bill will likely include, the Post says, is "funding for federal facilities such as military bases and veterans hospitals."

Military facilities have fared well in the Bush rebuilding plan. As we revealed in Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, Congress already handed out $2 billion for "shipbuilding and conversion," which is good news primarily for Northrop Grumman, the giant defense contractor with three shipyards in Mississippi and Louisiana.