BLAME GAME

bush blames god

President Bush says he will launch an inquiry in what happened post-Katrina. Hmm...I think there's a very likely chance that, at the end of this inquiry, FEMA's Mike Brown might get a Medal of Freedom.

Hey Dubya, will this inquiry include anything about this Aug. 28 memo?

You have to give Christopher Hitchens credit: he really remains loyal to the neo-con party line. In Slate, he argues that Iraq had nothing to do with the hurricane response. To be quite honest, I'm willing to actually buy much of his argument in this respect: NOLA was a disaster in the making for decades. Everyone has said this.

Moreover, there was enough personnel, on the ground, in the U.S. (vs. overseas) that could probably have manned whatever emergency response was needed. The problem wasn't the quantity of manpower - it was putting it into action soon enough, which obviously failed to happen.

So why blame Bush? I thought tonight's Daily Show captured it best: it's not Bush's hands-on management that's the issue for most, at least, I don't think it should be. Bush is a symbol but as I've stressed throughout, what you saw was a massive failure of government bureaucracy at many levels, not just resting at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

However, the problem with Bush is that he simply cannot project himself as a 1) competent or 2) compassionate leader. He never has. And given this, given 9/11, given trying to sell us on Iraq, it really, truly boggles many of us, at least 45% of the population, that he's managed to stay in office and that at least the other half of America actually seems to think this dude is worth backing.

So I'm not sure it's exactly accurate to blame Bush for the NOLA disaster. His underlings? Yeah, no doubt. I think it's more the point thought that we can blame Bush for being an incredibly crappy leader in a time of national crisis, someone who doesn't reassure you - actually offends instead - and yet, keeps on trucking with a "what? Me worry?" attitude. I don't think this is an impeachable offense but frankly, it ought to. Getting BJs in the broom closet of the White House isn't a great look either but at least Clinton exuded more charisma with his big honkin' nose than Dubya can muster in his entire body.

But really, it's not the charisma issue that's at hand here. It's also Bush's failure to protect American from...itself.

I'm sure has already been said elsewhere but is resting on my mind. Don't you think, somewhere out there, there's a cadre of terrorists sitting around, watching CNN, thinking, "wait, that's all we needed to do? Blow up a levee? Jesus, and here we were, trying to get our hands on a dirty bomb. All we needed was some bulldozers and maybe a little C4."

I saw over at Home of the Groove, a New Orleans-dedicated MP3 blog, an editorial by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann who makes the following comments along these lines:

"No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes.  Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska."

"But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe...this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water."

By the way, Slate's John Dickerson lays out a road map to Bush's post-Katrina rehabilitation. I, for one, will be highly surprised to see him take it.

I think all this uproar over Kanye is soon to be very moot. I mean, it's great that David Banner, T.I. and Jay-Z all are backing West but seriously, the people have voted and: Kanye is their man. Bill O'Reilly can whine all he wants but he's not stopping 'Ye like he did Luda.

By the way, this MTV News poll is illuminating in terms of public perceptions around Katrina responses.

--O.W.