President Bush refuses to extend the sign-up period. ''Deadlines,'' he said last week, ''help people understand there's finality, and people need to get after it, you know?'' His real objection to extending the deadline is probably that this would be an implicit admission that his administration botched the program's start-up. And Mr. Bush never, ever admits mistakes.

Krugman explains how there were originally only 300 customer service representatives to handle 43 million Medicare recipients. He also points out that even after more customer service agents were added, they only helped choose the correct program 41% of the time.

And though he doesn't identify them by name, he also says that the Congressman and administration official closest to this debacle both left their positions to take jobs as lobbyists, shortly after the legislation passed.

And I've got to include Krugman's closing:

As John DiIulio, the former head of Mr. Bush's faith-based initiative, told Esquire, ''What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm.'' Ideology and cronyism take complete precedence over the business of governing.

And that's why when it comes to actual policy as opposed to politics, the Bush administration has turned out to have the reverse Midas touch. Everything it gets its hands on, from the reconstruction of Iraq to the rescue of New Orleans, from the drug benefit to the reform of the C.I.A., turns to crud.