16 days in, seeking to stop plunging poll numbers, Bush takes halting steps towards joining his "culture of responsibility"
WASHINGTON-- President Bush for the first time took responsibility Tuesday for federal government mistakes in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and suggested the calamity raised broader questions about the government's ability to handle both natural disasters and terror attacks.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at a joint White House news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong," said Bush.
Facing sharp criticism and the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, Bush scheduled a speech to the nation from Louisiana for Thursday evening. It will be his fourth trip to the devastated Gulf Coast since the storm struck two weeks ago.
Wow! This is REALLY something. For Bush to even dance around the posibility that ANYTHING is his fault is truly earthshaking. The White House must be in full panic mode for them to resort to anything so utterly contrary to their nature, so diametrically opposed to their iron-clad rule that being Bush, like love, means never having to say you're sorry.
This news is being reported in blaring headlines around the world... Bush actually accepts some measure of responsibility for the failures of his own government agencies. Imagine!
The only crying shame and outrage in all of it is that this shouldn't be news at all. It is what a good leader does. But this president's inability to accept responsibility or accountibility for ANYTHING was nothing short of pathological, and so this truly is a momentous occasion.
And of course, it's the ONLY course of action he could take if he wants a ghost of a chance of not going down in flames.
Imagine that. It only took another disaster on a scale that rocks the entire country for Bush's handlers to grit their teeth and advise him to be something other than a gigantic, arogant, beligerant, blowhard. I'm sure Bush resisted and likely threw a tantrum. After all, this might mean that the rest of his reign of error will have to be spent doing something that is an unspeakable nightmare for a Bush: helping the poor. But Rove et. al. must have gotten it through his dense skull that if he didn't, he could go out of office with lower ratings than his daddy.
And after all, his advisors likely assured him, he can enrich the "friends" that paid, cheated, and fixed him into office just as much by "helping" the victims of Katrina, in fact almost as much as by killing thousands in the middle-east. Sure, it won't be as "cool" and fun, but as long as it means more millions for his masters, things will be ok.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 9/13/2005
4 comments
4 Comments:
Sorry Wind but I feel that Bush will not recover nearly as well as Kennedy did. This is in now way near anything like the Kennedy administration.
I had to chuckle when I saw today's front page story of the Dispatch I think - with Bush in a boat cowering down low to avoid an electric line hanging down......
He would like to hide out in Crawford again too I bet.
Amen Anon... To even mention the two in the same sentence is almost sacreligious. As Bentsen might say, "I knew Jack Kennedy, and Bush is no Jack Kennedy."
If Bush's ratings zoom up to 80%, I'll walk down the Avenue of the Cities wearing nothing but a bra with "Bush" on one cup and "Cheney" on the other.
While some may view this as a shrewd move by Bush, the fact remains that it is the only RIGHT move by any president.
It is long overdue, and flies in the face of their incomprehendible aversion to accepting responsiblility for anything remotely negative towards Bush.
I'm actually very disappointed that Bush has suddenly exhibited signs of doing things any other president would have done long ago.
This shows that they are willing to do the unimaginable in order to stop the harrowing slide in his approval numbers... namely, admit that ANYTHING negative is even slightly Bush's responsibility, rather than beligeratntly ignoring reality and blaming Democrats like little children.
If Bush keeps acting like an adult, his numbers may actually go back up.
If this means more effective help for the thousands of victims of Katrina, it's all good.
But just the same, I'd rather watch Bush slink out of office with his approval rating scraping rock bottom as is only fitting.
Wind again I have to disagree with you. Bush is in the tanker and there will he stay.
The only reason he took on the responsibility was to stop the talk about him and his disaster.
He continues to show ineffective leadership on so many issues that he can't be saved and even with this desperate move he's still in deep doo doo until he leaves office making it a great chance for the Dems to get some ground.
Yep. I'd say Bush's belated move to accept responsibility falls firmly into the "too little, too late" catagory and the American public knows it.
Whether Bush continues to crater is anyone's guess, but if there's any divine justice, he certainly will.
Coming out weeks late with a half-ass acceptance of some responsibility isn't going to be enough to miraculously turn this downward trend around.
His approval numbers were on a slippery slope BEFORE Katrina, and they're only gaining momentum now.
If you isolate it from everything else as if you're reading a poly-sci textbook, maybe you'd believe this will turn it around.
But it's not that sterile of a situation.
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