The strange thing about the NO disaster is that Rove is not stupid.

[King Coal]

This was a perfect chance for Smirk to improve his ratings, just by showing up. Rove knew that. He's not stupid. Why did they delay the aid? I'm convinced it was intentional. It had to have been. What did they have to gain by it?

[mattomjoe]

1. I think it's more like they believe they are untouchable.

They create their own reality.

[gWbush is Mabus]

8. Thier Gain: more damage = more Halliburton contracts

.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. They've bullied the press for so long and hoodwinked many Americans

They thought they could handle it with a few photo ops like Florida last year, but hey, no rush, it's not an election year.

[bigbrother05]

19. They are one trick pony

As soon as he said (We're making progress) I knew we were in for some trouble same as Mission accomplished. They have nothing to offer so they use the same mantra over and over and over.

[whistle]

2. Part of PNAC to take over America...

[bleedingheart]

3. Because it appeals to the true Neo Cons not to do anything

let us think of the president's voting base.

1. They dislike african americans (unless they are african americans who conveniently spout neocon bullshit) and hate affirmative action.
2. They hate any kind of federal aid to anyone or anything.

[BurtWorm]

4. He may not be stupid, but he's unfeeling.

Don't give them too much credit for brains. There's an awful lot of shit up there.

Rove might be somewhat preoccupied with the Plame-outing investigation, if it's really going somewhere. But even without Plame, these guys do not give a fuck about anything but taking down enemies and saving their own skins.

[Spazito]

5. They didn't have it on their PR radar, it was as simple as that

Their focus was on the bad PR because of Cindy, imo. That's why bush went to California, besides fund raising of course, to address the Navy props.

[Last Lemming]

16. Good point

[crikkett]

30. right- wasn't he visiting the anti-Cindy camp early last week? n/t

[Spazito]

31. Yep, Rove was photographed there at the same time the

hurricane was hurtling towards NO.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

42. That's right

Cindy did more than just mess with bush's vacation. They were completely distracted and had no prepared PR plan for NO.

In my honest opinion Rove screwed this up big time, he was off pandering to the RW in Crawford while the rest of America was looking to NOLA.

[raccoon]

6. I've been wondering about this too.

It's as if BUsh's PR machine failed just as the NO pumping stations did. Instead of going around pretending to play the guitar and eating cake (how appropriate!), Bush should have at least been lamenting and wringing his hands.

[htuttle]

7. "Smart" people fuck up all the time

That's a dirty little secret that smart people have -- they screw up too.

Napolean wasn't stupid -- yet he invaded Russia in the winter time anyway.

Worse yet, when some "smart" people fuck up, they often have more trouble accepting they've made a mistake -- especially the ones who are arrogant as hell to boot.

[King Coal]

9. Plausible, I suppose.

But if that is the case, it's not just a fuck up, it's a fuck up on steroids.

[blogslut]

15. exactly

It probably never occurred to them that people would be angered at their miserable failure in protecting the Gulf Coast. Our outrage never crossed their minds.

[Plaid Adder]

11. It makes sense when you consider he's also not fully human.

Seriously. Rove has performed some kind of operation on himself to remove not just his conscience, but that thing in your stomach that seizes up when you see a picture of another human being suffering. He doesn't have the decency gag reflex any more. So what that means is, he has to really think about it to figure out what is going to upset ordinary people. Any of us would look at these pictures and say, holy shit, this is a huge problem! Rove is looking at them and saying, enh, poor black people and it's not an election year, I'm on vacation, fuck it. No one'll remember come 2006.

Oh, we will remember, you asshole. Don't you worry about that.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[seito]

12. The did not for-see the media coverage

They also did not anticipate that the Gov would not succumb to pressure to place State assets under Fed control.

[Shoeempress]

13. I agree it was intentional. They planned to blame the Dem Governor and

Mayor. That is why they let media in but no relief or aid workers. Unfortunately for them, their Hubris made them blind to how this would play to the American electorate.

[kansasblue]

14. I think maybe Rove enjoys the challenge....

they screw up.

Call Rove! He'll fix it!

[napi21]

17. I think it was to have the aid come into the city about the same time

Shrub did to give the image of "Shrub actually bringing it"! You know what I mean..."Here comes the cavalry to save the day"!

It also failed to work! The people aren't buyin' it!

It was also Rove's idea to make sure all the Pubs "not talk about what didn't happen but to focus on what we're doing now" story. That's not working either!

Rove is good at manipulating what people think, but he's now finding out that doesn't aLWAYS work!

[Kurovski]

36. The cavalry angle is a very plausible one.

They really rolled in the heavy equipment at the same time the little idiot made his limp appearance.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Maybe they thought they didn't want the prez associated with images

of disaster, and that they could blame it all on local Democratic politicians. Then the media woke up, and started calling the White House on their failures.

[Done]

20. They are smart when it comes to manipulating,

but they have never demonstrated any brains when it comes to governing. This disaster is no different. Their "leadership" was horrible but they will now convince most people that they did a good job and it was someone else's fault.

[King Coal]

23. Good answer. I think you've nailed it.

[woodsprite]

21. I think they thought this was a gift on a silver platter

in place of creating a MIHOP incident. Since it wasn't planned that way in advance, it took them awhile to get their crap together. Since they failed at that, they've decided to let the Dem Gov and Mayor take the blame. If they can succeed at that, they'll at least think they succeeced at pulling a rabbit out of the hat.

[atreides1]

22. What did they have to gain?

Maybe they wanted to see how far they could take things, even now the Bush supporters are still behind him %100.

Rove may just want to get feel about things, perhaps to take it to the next level, whatever that may be.

[Coastie for Truth]

24. Good discussion at "Why FEMA Failed" on DU

where I asked the question ?

The original append, links to Farhad Manjoo's article in Salon.com, http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/07/fema/index.html|Why FEMA Failed>, citing Josh Marshall.

George Haddow, who served as the deputy chief of staff at FEMA under James Lee Witt, Bill Clinton's FEMA director, thinks that FEMA's current flaws are all too understandable -- and are a direct consequence of the Bush administration's decision to pull the federal government out of the natural disaster-relief business and turn over more power to state and local officials.
...
According to Haddow, instead of working with local officials to try to minimize the impacts of an impending storm, the White House has decided its best strategy is to keep its distance from people on the ground. That way if anything goes wrong, the White House can "attack, attack, attack."

I think I have some expertise in this - as an honorably discharged Coast Guard Officer, as a Red Cross Disaster Services volunteer, and as an emergency qualified Ham Radio operator -- in my opinion Bush's philosophy on this point is 100% wrong -- and will just lead to more catastrophic loss of life.

[txindy]

25. I've thought that, too. Why didn't they jump on this?

Did they think the fallout from the public wouldn't be this bad? Did they think the KoolAid was too strong for people to see the truth in NO and other cities/towns in the South? Did they want to take over NO so badly that they just stood by and let it be destroyed? Or is it all of the above? :shrug:

[Beetwasher]

26. It's My Belief That they Literally COULDN'T Have Bush Do ANYTHING

because he had to dry out first.

[King Coal]

29. I don't know Beet, he wasn't drunk in Phoenix or San Diego.

[Beetwasher]

32. How Do We Know That?

It doesn't take much to pose for a cake cutting and w/ a guitar...Hell, he hardly has to be conscious to do crap like that...

[Ready4Change]

27. Distraction by Disaster.

I've seen it over and over with this administration. Just when a scandal should be about to take one of them down, a new scandal arises to take off the heat. This whole administration has been on long string of scandals and disasters.

Plame was sticking. They needed this to be a BIG disaster. They wanted NOLA to be desperate. Then, they wanted Bush to ride to the rescue, revising his post 9/11 megaphone performance. Disaster and the Bush Messiah.

What they didn't count on was the media not being as cooperative as it was 4 years ago. Just uncooperative enough that much of the country recognized the uneeded delay, the planned photo-ops. Rather than being bedazzled by Bush's rescue, they are recognizing this administrations miscues, in cutting funds for strengthening the levees for just this sort of thing. In cutting FEMAs funding and authority, and for adding another layer of bureaucracy between people in trouble and those who'd like to help.

[rainbow4321]

39. No kiddding..I have yet to see much about Saddam pleading "guilty"

Don't get me wrong, I would much rather watch Katrina coverage but what better way for an extended trial to be skipped and chimp to not have to worry about any more Saddam-chimp past relationships to be exposed...have him "plead guilty" and lock him up, never to be heard from again. ALL done while the world is watches Katrina destruction.

WAS that Rove's plan but once the levies broke, the whole distraction plan started going wrong and has now backfired?

:tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[Hamlette]

28. This is Politics 101. All Bush had to do is show up. I'm stumped.

Even my husband who doesn't join in on conversations bashing Bush (he's a dem, he's just...odd that way) is saying how bad this was.

All they needed was the image of Bush in the area the next day. FEMA could have completely screwed up the rescue effort and Bush would not have been blamed (my theory.)

Why didn't they fly him over for a photo op? So easy. It's as troubling a question as: why the hell did we invade Iraq?

As to Katrina, I really think its because Bush has no compassion. No empathy. No conscience. He's bought into his Dirty Harry/cowboy/tough guy image and it keeps him proped up even in his own eyes now.

Blame Babs. She's the meanest human alive. She taught him all he knows.

[Mutley]

33. Maybe they're setting Chimpy up to fail.

For now, at least, he can't be reelected, so why worry about his image? Then they'll bring out some up and coming Repub who will denounce Bush and his policies and restore the people's faith in the Right.

[Kurovski]

34. 1) Don't discount the message that this sends to the racist base

that BushCo relies upon.

2) As was mentioned already, his wealthy base and main contributors will be benefiting. (There are a lot stories right there for reporters to follow.)

3) Blaming local Democratic leaders could be an attempt to oust those leaders, to put in more Republicans. The "Gray Davis effect". Those fast and furious "blame game" attacks we've been seeing are very, very well planned.

4) A lot of Democratic voters died in New Orleans.

5) Rendering government incompetent fits in with BushCo's efforts to privatize everything. They can now argue to the uninformed that business will do better than government. What a lot of folks don't get is that for all practical purposes, George IS the frickin' government.

6) Stalling rescue further sends the message that Americans should rely almost exclusively on private rescue, in other words, you're on your own. He met with Church leaders and said something to the effect that this would be a good place to send your money.

7) Exacerbating the effects of the natural disaster brings the "biblical proportions" element up a few notches, which might be giving his nutjob fundie base some amount of wood.

8) Let's face it folks, some of these crazies in charge seem to get off on human suffering.

All of these are very ugly reasons that the sane and decent among us will recoil from, but then Karl ain't called "Turd Blossom" for nothing.

[Hamlette]

38. sad but possibly true

expecially the point about rendering the government incompetent so it can be privitized.

Shockingly, they might be able to sell it. Scary thought that national security could be (probably already is) in the hands of Haliburton.

[Kurovski]

40. BushCo wouldn't take a risk like this unless there was

going to be a wide range of benefits.

There may be reasons we can't even begin to guess at.

The only thing that's clear is that they chose to do nothing.

[info being]

35. He didn't think the media would turn on them

When they control the media they control everything. What they don't understand is that the Internet is putting pressure on the media and forcing them to occassionally admit the truth in order to keep viewers.

So expect an attack on the Internet in the coming months, and expect an attempt to get the media back in line.

[TOOLZ]

37. Even fascist bastards go on vacation...

Maybe Rove was at Burning Man.

[SmokingJacket]

41. Ratings are not that important to them, especially now.

Bush is in office with a Republican congress -- he's in like Flynn, who cares about ratings?

The longer they delayed aid, the worse things would get. And so suddenly there's a new argument for privatization of disaster relief. New contracts for all his buddies. It's going to be one HUGE slush fund.

Also, retribution for a democratic city. Why help his political enemies? Now, democratic governors and mayors know that they'd better kiss ass if they want any help in the future. The (remaining) people of Louisiana will likely blame the democrats in goverment, too...

There are probably other related reasons. There was talk about oil revenue...

[Impeach_Shrub]

43. Not stupid. Not a mistake. Deliberate. Not genecide.."Class-a-cide"

I think they did all this just so they could have desparate people to join the "volunteer" army and go war profiteering in Iraq. Did you know they sent military recruiters into the Superdome? They didn't send water, but, they sent recruiters. So, now that they have 100,000 more homeless, they are hoping some will have no choice but the military, and hoping the rest will give up and die. Then, shortly, we will hear Bushco brag that the unemployment rate has gone down, failing to mention that it's only because so many of them died. Impeach The Sonofva Bush! Call your senators today, I have!

[mattclearing]

44. Louisiana - New Orleans = Permanent Red State. n/t

[mod mom]

45. I've always said hubris will be their downfall.

[AbbyR]

46. I was wondering, since the media

seems to be on the roll, too, and Rove is silent, maybe they have given up on Bush? Is it even remotely possible that they realize he will pull them down in '06 and they are doing everything they can to get him out before he does any more damage that will stick to him? Wishful thinking, probably.

Of course, the poster who said he was drying out could be right....

[Pobeka]

47. Bush = lame duck scapegoat.

The person known as Bush is most valuable now to the neocons as a scapegoat. He certainly isn't electable anymore.

It really isn't too hard to let the media point out he's and idiot, and all the problems of the past 5 (6,7,8) years are his fault.

This lets the corrupt GOP congress off the hook.

So in 2006 the moderates will be able to vote for another GOP congressional candidate with a "clean" conscience. And in 2008 they will be able to vote for a GOP president knowing the last one was just an anomoly.

This works because people no longer understand that the congress has an oversight role on the legislative branch, and, the current should share equally in the blame for all the crap from the past 5 (6,7,8) years

This is my theory. This and a quarter won't get you a cup of coffee anymore...