Washington (FA Wire) - As the third major hurricane of the season approached the Gulf Coast, the major presidential candidates reacted with anger and traded charges.

A spokesman for the Kerry campaign pointed to the questionable timing of the three storms, all of which “seemed to happen at times when Bush needed to either highlight his compassion, like during Hurricane Frances, or now, when he needs to distract attention from his National Guard service revelations.” Although Kerry himself refrained from directly accusing the Bush administration of jury-rigging the weather, he did make a veiled reference to it in a campaign speech yesterday. “There’s one thing the Bush administration is good at,” he said. “And that’s generating a lot of wind. In Washington, yes, but also… elsewhere.”

The Bush administration responded with accusations of their own. “Why have we been hit with three hurricanes this summer?” asked the President. “It’s simple - these storms hate freedom. They hate our way of life. I’m not saying all storms are terrorists or even Muslims, there are plenty of nice, decent terrorists and Muslims out there. But these storms need to be dealt with firmly.”

Dick Cheney went even further with this theme yesterday. “The American people have a critical choice coming this fall, and if they make the wrong choice, we can expect to see a lot more hurricanes coming our way. Typhoons too. Probably tornados and earthquakes. These are the kinds of things that happen when you play all loosey-goosey with nature. Can’t let nature get the upper hand. Gotta earn its respect. Subdue it. We have a plan for that, and our opponents, well, without putting too fine a point on it, but if they win, you’ll die.”

The Nader campaign also issued a comprehensive statement on the politics of these storms, but at press time nobody had read it nor expressed any interest in it.