http://tinyurl.com/5satgo

"As the deadly storm system moved ashore almost three years ago, sending fatal floods through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Bush was in Phoenix, on a tour aimed at boosting participation in what was then the administration's new Medicare prescription-drug plan. McCain had opposed the bill, but showed up to meet Bush at the airport anyway, along with other Arizona lawmakers. It was Aug. 29, McCain's 69th birthday, and on the tarmac, Bush presented his old political rival with a cake. The two posed, holding the cake up for cameras, and within seconds, went their separate ways. The cake, melting in the 110-degree Arizona heat, was left behind, uneaten.

It's a photo op that Democrats will no doubt use as part of their campaign to portray a McCain presidency as nothing more than a third Bush term--a picture of the senator and the president, yukking it up on one of the administration's darkest days. But McCain, visiting New Orleans this week as part of his campaign's tour of America's "forgotten" places, is trying to put distance between himself and Bush as he woos moderate Democrats and independents. Arriving Thursday morning, McCain was asked how he planned to distinguish himself from Bush's handling of Katrina. "Just like I do everything," he said. "They have to judge me on my record." He argues, as he has all week in places like Selma, Ala., and in eastern Kentucky, that he's a different kind of Republican and would be a different kind of president."