VDB would like to announce a coveted new award, limited to those either in the Bush adminstration or the extended Bush family. The Vermont Daily Briefing “Piece of Work” Awards (VDB/POW!) will be awarded on a semi-regular basis to administration types exhibiting semi-consciousness in their public statements or actions. The award is memorialized in an 18-karat gold statuette of former-First Lady Barbara Bush, who set the standard for once and future POW! recipients with her remarks to reporters during her trip to the crowded Houston Astrodome following Hurricane Katrina. Asked about the plight of the hurricane’s victims, Barbara was refreshingly upbeat: “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them.”

Bravo, former-First Lady Barbara Bush. You are — by any standard — truly a Piece of Work.