If you haven't watched the recently released videos of Bush's pre-Katrina briefings, you should move on over to Crooks & Liars for the full story. There you'll see that President Bush was told -- in no uncertain terms -- that the hurricane would be brutal, that the levees could very well break, and that the damage and death toll could be incredibly high. Confronted with this grim news, the president assured state officials that the federal government was "fully prepared" and would rush onto the scene with supplies and men as soon as the storm hit.
And then, of course, the president clicked off the teevee and went back to his vacation in Crawford. Come on, people. That brush isn't going to clear itself!
When all of the dire predictions came true and it was revealed that the president really hadn't prepared for the storm and really didn't have the situation in hand, the "I Didn't Do It" Boy rushed before the cameras to whip out his patented "I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated..." defense. On September 1st, 2005, President Bush told Diane Sawyer: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."
Now, you may remember this patethic cop-out from such previous appearances as "I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated Terrorists Would Fly Planes into the Towers," "I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated a Post-Invasion Insurgency," and, of course, "I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated the Spanish Inquisition." This presidency has wrapped itself in the warm embrace of its own ignorance and incompetence, constantly insisting that nobody could've foreseen any of these problems, when the evidence seems to be that anybody with a fully functioning frontal lobe could've figured these things out. "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside U.S."? Golly, what could that mean? The hurricane's closing in on New Orleans? Well who knows what could happen?
Over and over again, the president has acted as though his cluelessness somehow excuses the drastic results of his incompetence. He acts as though this is a bad sitcom, where everything falls apart because of Bush's wacky Clouseau-like antics, and the rest of the cast just smiles lovingly at their cute lil' buddy.
I guess you can't blame him, since he's been plucked out of one disaster after another his whole life. No matter how bad he screws up -- going AWOL from the National Guard, running oil companies into the ground, trading Sammy Sosa -- the powers that be step in, dust him off, and put him back on his feet.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and the current powers that be -- in this case, Congress -- will step in, impeach him, and put him out on the street. You know that deep down inside, Bush would love nothing more than to spend all his time down on the ranch, clearing brush, and looking tough. Maybe an early retirement would suit him well.
10 comments:
I think the Invulnerable Presidency has been breached. And I'm not sure anybody anticipated it...
Just when poll numbers seem like they cannot possibly go any lower, this video starts circulating.
The tipping point starts...now.
I think you're right, Furious. The ports deal and this video are going to be a swift one-two punch to this administration's stomach.
I think we'll see him down near 30% in the next polls, though I'm not sure how much lower it can go....
Way to bring it all together, OM.
I'm actually starting to think that Brownie wasn't such an idiot after all. The video isn't enough evidence to exonerate the horse lover, but it sounds like he understood the dangers and was doing his job to organize and prepare. His big mistake, apparently, was trusting Bush on the "we'll take care of it" thing.
Hmmm, trusting Bush results in terrible damage to self and country? I could swear I've heard that before . . .
Yeah, I never thought I'd say this, but Brownie comes off looking a lot better there than Chertoff and Bush. And the state and local leaders look good, with Bush on tape telling them he's got it all under control.
It'll be interesting to see if the stench of failure moves up the chain of command or not.
See, Brownie's mistake was trying to do anything at all. If he had stuck to just emailing, he would have been fully on board with the Ostrich defense, but by accepting any responsibility to do anything, he's on the hook for the whole thing. It's something like that Taco Bell (or is it Wendy's? Whatever...) "The tie touched you last, dude"
I remember seeing someone pegging the Batshit Insane Republican Base at 27%. That number is based on the percentage of the vote netted by carpetbagging asylum escapee Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate race versus Obama.
Bush is perilously close to reaching it. And interestingly, Cheney is several feet underwater on that scale.
It's true about Brown, too. I think he was doing okay as long as we're talking about pre-storm and he was able to follow some protocols. He was clearly punching above his wieght once the storm hit however.
Though it now looks more like Bush and Cherthoff did him no favors...
Kung Fu Monkey pegged it at 27%. I think I posted the link in the comments to an earlier post.
That sounds about right to me. There's a core in the GOP base that would still think Bush was a bold leader and a good man if he dug up the corpse of Abraham Lincoln and sodomized it on national TV.
You know, I got married on Sept. 3, and I'm confident I spent more time that week concerned with Katrina than the president.
In the interest of fairness, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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