In just about his last act as president, George W. Bush has declared Washington, D.C., a federal disaster area. No, seriously. I’m not setting up some lame-o punchline here, like we used to do a decade back in the good old Monica days: “President Clinton today declared his pants a federal disaster area,” etc. What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia. So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane? No, it’s the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak...