Dixie Chicked!

I'm waiting for the call to burn their records:

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw -- two stars who usually stay out of politics -- blasted the Hurricane Katrina cleanup effort, with Hill calling the slow progress in Louisiana and Mississippi "embarrassing" and "humiliating."

The country music artists -- who are natives of the storm ravaged states -- were at times close to tears, and clearly angry when the subject of Katrina came up during a news conference today. They had met with reporters in Nashville to promote their upcoming Soul2Soul II Tour, but when asked about the hurricane cleanup, the stars pulled no punches.

"To me, there's a lot of politics being played and a lot of people trying to put people in bad positions in order to further their agendas," McGraw, a 38-year-old native of Delhi, La., told ABC News Radio.

"When you have people dying because they're poor and black or poor and white, or because of whatever they are -- if that's a number on a political scale -- then that is the most wrong thing. That erases everything that's great about our country."

McGraw specifically criticized President Bush. "There's no reason why someone can't go down there who's supposed to be the leader of the free world … and say, 'I'm giving you a job to do and I'm not leaving here until it's done. And you're held accountable, and you're held accountable, and you're held accountable.

"'This is what I've given you to do, and if it's not done by the time I get back on my plane, then you're fired and someone else will be in your place. '"'

Though it may have changed by now, last I heard, that job went to Karl Rove. And why does Michael Chertoff still have a job?

While we're on the subject of jobs, somebody want to explain to me again why Bush made a photo-op out of Katrina yesterday? 6 months after he was last there, and nothing has changed, and he wants to be pictured in it? I mean, Faith Hill is at least willing to say something:

The president had actually spent the day in New Orleans, getting a close-up look at boarded-up buildings and mountains of debris, noting that the city still suffers "pain and agony."

Along the president's route, some frustrated residents held up signs in protest, one asking "Where's my government?" and another telling the president to "cut the red tape and help us."

Hill, who grew up in Jackson, Miss., echoed those sentiments. So overwhelmed, she uncharacteristically unleashed an epithet, calling the situation, "Bull- - - -"

"It is a huge, huge problem and it's embarrassing," she said.

"I fear for our country if we can't handle our people [during] a natural disaster. And I can't stand to see it. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out point A to point B. . . . And they can't even skip from point A to point B.

"It's just screwed up."

Is there no one in this country who can rid of us this troublesome President? By, you know, pointing out what a useless tool he is? I mean, when he serves it up to you slow and fat and right across the middle of the plate? Will no one even swing?

These things that pass for knowledge, I don't understand.