Fires devastate parts of Southern California where officials lack the resources to save hundreds of homes.

Down South, New Orleans is trying to bring order to the aftermath of Katrina that leveled the Crescent City two years ago.

In the Midwest, a major interstate bridge collapses from lack of maintenance.

Meanwhile, back on the East Coast, President Bush has a new demand for Congress to pour more billions of dollars into the war in Iraq.

Is Rome burning while Nero fiddles? Is the United States losing its financial resources like a tub loses its water when somebody pulls the stopper?

The Rome fire of 64 A.D. was a heck of a blaze from which the empire never fully recovered. Sure, Nero rebuilt his city but at such a heavy financial cost, his subjects revolted over taxes and he botched his suicide.

Scholars say Nero was more than 30 miles away at his vacation villa when the fire started, and the fiddle was yet to be invented. The myth is an euphemism for ineptitude, for being out of touch, for stubbornness.

President Bush didn't ask, he demanded that Congress approve $26 billion more to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going. Democrats say his present plan for victory is to spend another $1 trillion over the next decade. Yet he rejects their advice.

The war has taken several routes over the past four years. Early on, the administration planned to barter troops for oil to liberate Iraq. That plan laid an international egg. It was colonialism.

But the plan wouldn't have worked anyway at that time because saboteurs kept blowing up the pipelines. Today, with some military protection, 1.8 million barrels of Iraqi petroleum move onto world markets each day. That's about $5 billion worth annually, and Iraq is capable of producing much more crude.

So why not spend more war money on oil security instead of using it to train Iraqi police and call it oil for democracy?

Let's stop fiddling and help Iraq get more oil on the world market. That, at least, is an obtainable goal that can't do much more harm to the tattered U.S. image.

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