Big Joe drops the bombshell in today’s Courant: he opposes “political finger-pointing” with all the dwindling force at his command.

Which gave VDB a serious case of deja vu, and so we dug into Martha Rainville’s early months on the campaign trail.

And gosh darned if she didn’t deflect every serious question about Rainvillian or Republican culpability with Noyes-generated comments about “finger-pointing” too! (For a classic example, see “Rainville Firm: No Hand Jive” from April 2006.)

Of course, Lieberman isn’t the only plagiarist: Rainville lifted the handy phrase from the GOP leadership, trying desperately to ward off corruption coverage at the end of last year.

And the GOP picked up the tactic from the Bush administration, who tried desperately to ward off post-Katrina criticism by pre-emptively decrying the “blame game.”

That, of course, was almost exactly one year ago. Tuesday will make the anniversary official.

And in honor of that one year anniversary of incompetence and profiteering, we bring you Marc Nadel’s brilliant, epic Katrina-inspired cartoon in its entirety, rather than the clip-outs we usually offer.

Think of it as finger-pointing, taken to the nth degree.

Late Update, Monday, August 28th, 9:51 am:

If you missed it this weekend, the editors at the Free Press gave Rainville a piece of their collective mind on the subject of continuing the current GOP Congressional leadership. The lead-in? “Rainville is Wrong.” It’s choice. Merry Christmas, Welch folks.