In Mississippi the hope of going home has dwindled. While Bush was in Mississippi today staging carefully orchestrated photo-ops, a media avail and small events with Bush-friendly locals he met with last year, reality has set in with some residents, and they recognize that the “possibilities of getting back home may now seem more remote than ever.”

Fewer than 5 percent of the thousands of destroyed homes are being rebuilt, local officials said. Most of the affected homeowners in Mississippi and Louisiana have yet to see any of the billions in federal money approved to help them get back home.

“For the people who’ve been able to get back to their homes, there’s a sigh of relief,” said Biloxi City Council member Bill Stallworth. “But for those who haven’t — and that’s the vast majority here — there’s a real panic.

“People recognize that it’s been a year and they’re still where they were the day after the storm. Now the volunteer groups are drying up. The money to assist families is drying up. People don’t know what they’re going to do.”

The devastation in Mississippi is “viewed more purely as a natural disaster,” unlike the devastation in New Orleans, “which resulted from the failure of man-made flood walls and levees.”

So while in New Orleans many vilify the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies responsible for flood control, many here simply blame themselves for not evacuating.

Counselors at relief organizations say they have dealt with parents who feel guilty for not having evacuated children or other loved ones in the face of the storm.

Now the anniversary is dredging up recollections.

The WaPo reports that the White House has been “distributing fact sheets and statistics suggesting progress, including the more than $110 billion of federal money that has been set aside by Congress for Gulf Coast assistance and reconstruction.” However, less than “half of that has actually been spent.” And local officials in both “Mississippi and Louisiana have been complaining about red tape slowing the flow of funds for housing and small businesses.”

Mississippi it seems is benefiting from their partisan connection to Bush with Gov. Barbour — “a former top lobbyist in Washington — capitalizing on his extensive ties and the state’s power in Congress to leverage extra funds.”

Bush himself alluded to the difference between Mississippi and Louisiana in developing reconstruction plans. “In Louisiana, it’s been a little slower,” he told reporters in Gulfport. “And I look forward to talking to the folks there about what we can do to work together to expedite these plans being implemented.”

It’s really quite simple isn’t it? The Bush administration greases the palms that fill his political coffers. Don’t expect Dubya to start sending extra goodie baskets down to NOLA, while Haley Barbour is still bending over.

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