Senator McCain visited the 9th ward of New Orleans today, a place that was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Here's what he had to say about how he would have handled things.

Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared that “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.’’

Mr. McCain, who was on the fourth day of a tour of America’s “forgotten places” to try to prove that he is a kinder, gentler Republican, ticked off a long list of mistakes: “There was unqualified people in charge, there was a total misreading of the dimensions of the disaster, there was a failure of communications.’’

Asked at an outdoor news conference if he traced the failure of leadership straight to the top, Mr. McCain, who has vowed to campaign with President Bush, said, emphatically, “yes.’’