David Brooks blathers on about Iraq and then Bob Herbert reminds us that New Orleans is still waiting.

If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame. There were millions of disaffected Republicans and independents ready to coalesce around some alternative way forward, but the Democrats never came up with anything remotely serious.

The liberals who favor quick exit never grappled with the consequences of that policy, which the Baker-Hamilton commission terrifyingly described. The centrists who believe in gradual withdrawal never explained why that wouldn’t be like pulling a tooth slowly. Joe Biden, who has the most intellectually serious framework for dealing with Iraq, was busy yesterday, at the crucial decision-making moment, conducting preliminary fact-finding hearings, complete with forays into Iraqi history.

The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they’re on their own.

So we are stuck with the Bush proposal as the only serious plan on offer. The question is, what exactly did President Bush propose last night? The policy rollout has been befogged by so much spin and misdirection it’s nearly impossible to figure out what the president is proposing.

Nonetheless, here’s my reconstruction of how this policy evolved:

On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented Bush with a new security plan for Baghdad. It called for U.S. troops to move out of Baghdad to the periphery, where they would chase down Sunni terrorists. Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish troops, meanwhile, would flood into the city to establish order, at least as they define it.

Maliki essentially wanted the American troops protecting his flank but out of his hair. He didn’t want U.S. soldiers embedded with his own. He didn’t want American generals hovering over his shoulder. His government didn’t want any restraints on Shiite might.

Over the next weeks, Bush rejected the plan and opted for the opposite approach. Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad “24/7,” suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.

Then came the job of selling the plan. The administration could not go before the world and say that the president had decided to overrule the sovereign nation of Iraq. Officials could not tell wavering Republicans that the president was proposing a heavy, U.S.-led approach.

Thus, administration officials are saying that they have adopted the Maliki plan, just with a few minor tweaks. In briefings and in the president’s speech, officials claimed that this was an Iraqi-designed plan, that Iraqi troops would take on all the primary roles in clearing and holding neighborhoods, that Iraqis in mixed neighborhoods would scarcely see any additional Americans.

All of this is designed to soothe the wounded pride of the Maliki government, and to make the U.S. offensive seem less arduous at home. It’s the opposite of the truth.

Yesterday, administration officials were praising Maliki lavishly. He wants the same things we want, they claimed. He has resolved to lead a nonsectarian government. He is reworking his governing coalitions and marginalizing the extremists. “We’ve seen the nascent rise of a moderate political bloc,” one senior administration official said yesterday.

But the selling of the plan illustrates that this is not the whole story. The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.

This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.

The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.

And now, if you aren’t depressed enough, we have Bob Herbert on New Orleans:

As its problems mount, the Big Easy is becoming increasingly unnerved.

Local officials, who will never be mistaken for the brightest lights in the firmament, have been unable to stem a hideous wave of murders. On Tuesday Mayor C. Ray Nagin said, “Enough is enough,” then added, “But we’ve said that before.”

The public school system, one of the worst in the nation, is trying to sell off some of its buildings to help with a desperate cash crunch.

Most depressing, more than 17 months after the horror of Hurricane Katrina, mile after mile after mile of the city that loved to present itself as the epicenter of laughter and good times still lies in ruin.

New Orleans is a place that could use a hopeful sign of any kind, some positive development to signal that perhaps better times are coming.

Enter Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab. Most people call him Gabe, and so will I for the rest of this column. Gabe is a middle-aged bundle of energy who heads the NHP Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that has taken on the difficult mission of providing quality housing at rents that poor and middle-class families can afford. There is no more imperative need in New Orleans than affordable housing.

On Garden Oaks Drive in the Algiers neighborhood Gabe showed me a remarkable sight — a sparkling two-story apartment complex, neatly landscaped, that was owned by NHPF, was badly damaged by the hurricane, and is now being completely renovated at a cost of $20 million.

Nearby are buildings that look like the hurricane hit them yesterday. The NHPF complex, known as Forest Park, will have 284 solid, attractive, energy-efficient units completed this year, with tenants beginning to move in as early as May. The rents will range from $194 to $673 a month.

In New Orleans East, which had been completely submerged in the flood, I stood with Gabe and an architect at what was once the site of a housing complex known as Walnut Square. “New Orleans East was under water for eight days,” said Gabe. “We had to raze it. It’s demolished.”

A quiet wind was blowing across the vast empty space where 18 residential buildings used to be.

The effort to rebuild Walnut Square, at a cost of $37 million, is already under way. There will be 209 apartments, with rents ranging from $130 to $820 a month. There will also be a commercial strip, a community center and day care facilities. (The apartments will be built on raised foundations to guard against future catastrophic floods.)

Eventually Gabe hopes to build 3,000 affordable rental apartments in and around New Orleans at a total cost of $300 million.

How does he do it, when others find the task so daunting?

The key, he said, is to combine the expertise of a successful real estate operation with the talent and vision of an experienced foundation committed to what is essentially a charitable mission. NHPF, which has its Louisiana office in Baton Rouge, gets the funds to build from government grants, tax credits and low-interest loans, as well as conventional financing.

As Gabe dryly noted, “There is not much profit in developing low- income housing.”

No successful rebirth of New Orleans is possible without substantial amounts of new and rebuilt housing — housing that the city’s very large percentage of low-income residents can afford. Most of the people homing in on development opportunities here have either no interest or no expertise in building such housing.

“There are essentially two kinds of organizations here,” said Gabe. “You have out-of-town real estate developers who look at this as a tremendous opportunity and their main concern, quite naturally, has been how much money they can make. On the other hand, you have well-meaning nonprofit entities that unfortunately, in most cases, do not have the capacity to develop on a significant scale.”

Compounding the problem has been the lack of housing expertise in New Orleans. Much of the city’s housing stock pre-Katrina was so poor as to be illegal in most major American cities. The Housing Authority of New Orleans, which administered public housing, was in such bad shape its operations had to be taken over by the federal government.

Half the population of New Orleans has been dispersed across the United States. Many of those still in the city are living in trailers or are doubled up with relatives and friends. There is no way to overstate the desperate need for housing.

Gabe and the NHP Foundation have provided at least one model that works.