This weird August brings images of a nation holding its breath.

TV screens show politicians and pundits above barometric crawls tracking Hurricane Isaac and switch over to news people on stormy beaches atop windy political pronouncements.

In this surreal atmosphere, dependable Rush Limbaugh explains it all, blaming the President for both sources of anxiety: “I’m not alleging conspiracies here. The Hurricane Center is the regime; the Hurricane Center is the Commerce Department. It’s Obama.”

This American August is traditional silly season news to the umpteenth degree. The month of guilty best-selling beach reading, backyard barbecues and grumbling about vacationing therapists has morphed into a reality meltdown, reflecting widespread psychic unease.

A New York Times editorial sees it all as “a powerful reminder both of Republican incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and the party’s no-less-disastrous plans to further cut emergency-related spending.”

From the other political direction, the Wall Street Journal whistles in the dark that “Tampa Republicans are a party in better shape than they might have expected after 2008, and one with a new reform mission…”

MORE.