Republicans Did Well With Alberto

As Bill Clinton told us the other day, GOP policies are responsible for more tropical storms. Well, the Republicans did well with Alberto (or Alfredo if you're Harry Reid), because that storm may have saved the day for farmers in the Southeast:

Instead of a disaster, Alberto's rainfall may turn out to be a blessing for Florida's efforts to battle wildfires and for farmers in Georgia who were worried about drought.

"It's definitely a million-dollar rain," said Joe McManus, a marketing specialist with the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon. "It could save some cotton and peanut fields."

Farmer Orson Adams, 65, was counting on the rain to help germinate the cotton seeds he planted last month in Douglas, Ga.

"What we've gotten has been slow and it's going into the soil," Adams said. "We've got a chance now to survive."

Officials said the storm also gave them real-world practice on the lessons learned from the slow response to some of last year's storms. Hurricane specialists said they ran into a few computer glitches but nothing that couldn't be fixed before the next storm.

Will there be praise forthcoming from peanut farmer Jimmy Carter?