The third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's assault on New Orleans is this week, and to mark the occasion, President Bush plans to appear in that city for a ceremony hailing the federal government's rebuilding efforts.

Michael "Brownie" Brown will not be at the president's side. As director of the Federal Emergency Relief Agency in 2005, Brownie was exposed as a political hack and incompetent. Forced to act under fire, he flopped and was fired.

		"THE WRECKING CREW: HOW CONSERVATIVES RULE" By Thomas Frank Metropolitan Books ($25)

In the flawless irony of today's political scene, Brownie is now a private disaster management consultant.

New Orleans remains a work in progress despite more than $100 billion in federal aid, money that went largely to private companies allied with the Bush administration and other right-wing organizations.

Many of the contracts were no-bid and many of the firms getting them had made hefty contributions to the GOP.

That same setup plays out daily in Iraq and in various elements of Bush's anti-terrorist campaigns, including the building of detention centers.

This private-public political axis is the focus of Thomas Frank's latest assault on contemporary governance in America. He emerged as a provocative social observer in 2004 with "What's the Matter With Kansas," a trenchant, literate explanation for the popularity of the Republican Party among the working class that left such intellectual pretenders as George Will spluttering in frustration.

Now Frank, who founded the progressive Chicago magazine The Baffler and writes for Harper's and the Wall Street Journal, turns his jaundiced gaze on Washington, D.C., and the bloated suburbs of Northern Virginia, full of ostentatious houses and upscale shops.

"Who are these people ... who live in these houses, these estate homes, these gated reserves?" wondered Frank on a drive through Loudoun County.

Answering his question, he replies:

"It's everybody who grabbed as the government handed off its essential responsibilities to the private sector ... and yes, the lobbyists who have greased the wheels."

Frank is more of an idealist than a liberal or progressive, and he reserves some of his criticism for the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton while unloading most of his ammo at the Reagan-inspired Republicans.

He harkens back to the 1960s, when America's middle class was large and prosperous, aided by federal policies -- and the vanished industrial economy -- that promoted its well-being.

The Reaganites and their offspring who have controlled at least one branch of U.S. government for most of the 27 years since "Dutch" took office in 1981 have waged a two-front war to discredit and destroy both that government and the Democratic opposition, Frank argues.

Citing the actions of such right-wing operatives and ideologues as Grover Norquist, Howard Phillips and Jack Abramoff (now serving jail time for fraud as a lobbyist), the author assembles a lively history of the right's campaign to dominate the federal government in order to enrich itself at the expense of the middle class, the poor and Democrats, just another word for "liberals."

A key element in the GOP strategy was placing Republicans, especially retiring members of Congress, into lobbying firms. Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, was renowned for his regular "K Street" Tuesday gatherings "at which job openings in the lobbying industry were assigned to deserving Republicans."

It's always been about money, Frank charges, greed cloaked in pretentious and phony philosophies about "the free market," "small government," the "individual" and the inviolability of capitalism.

"Whenever there was a choice to be made between markets and free people -- between money and the common good -- the conservatives chose money," says Frank, adding, "It's time to make them answer for it."

Clearly, "The Wrecking Crew" is a polemic by a tough liberal tired of being on the defensive and, as such, is fraught with generalities (a few Democrats live in fancy Virginia homes, I imagine), cheap shots and raps against people no longer in authority.

In his own way, Frank is as reckless and didactic as the one-sided attack dogs of the right. He's just not as wealthy.

Still, in a political campaign where the issues have been concentrated on gasoline prices and saber-rattling, Frank brings our attention back to the serious, long-reaching ills of the government in Washington.