Two years ago tomorrow, I was driving east on Interstate 10 through Baton Rouge in a pounding thunderstorm to file an onscene piece from New Orleans for Newsweek.com. Hurricane Katrina had already cut a murderous swath across the bayou country of Louisiana before it trashed the Mississippi Gulf Coast in what would turn out to be the worst natural disaster in United States history. While tens of thousands of residents in the stricken area sought refuge from the killer storm and relief workers did their best to attend to the sick, the hungry and the just plain traumatized, the man masquerading as the leader of the free world was kicking back on his ranch in Texas, wrapping up another summertime break from life inside the Beltway. None of us who covered the horrific aftermath of Katrina will soon forget the White House-issued photos of George W. Bush peering out of a passenger window on Air Force One at the devastated coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama fully two days after the storm made landfall.

Last week I was back on hurricane duty in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, wading boots and raincoat at the ready as we awaited the arrival of another Category 5 monster called Dean. 

She was beautiful, glamorous and wronged. Her compassion touched the lives of millions. No other member of the Royal Family could match her universal appeal. In the words of the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, she was "The People's Princess."

So much for the first hasty draft of history. Since then the revisionists have been at work, and with reason. It's ten years this week since Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car smash. The British nation has had plenty of time to mull the record, and it's no longer quite so sure about her legacy.