How Bush Blew It - Newsweek synopsis Well worth reading!

[Spazito]

Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe.


It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

The president did not growl this time. He had already decided to return to Washington and hold a meeting of his top advisers on the following day, Wednesday. This would give them a day to get back from their vacations and their staffs to work up some ideas about what to do in the aftermath of the storm. President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

more, much more

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434

[jayctravis]

1. So at one point, they were going to drag the potus back

because it wsan't yet clear he was going to end his vacation voluntarily?

[emulatorloo]

2. "Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them"

just when I think I can't be shocked anymore. -- they actually had to sit him down to watch the news?

[Skidmore]

3. My tush he was ready to go to DC because of Katrina--he was

trying to get away from Cindy Sheehan. How much shine can you put on cowardice, petulant arrogance, and outright effin' callousness. It never ceases to amaze me the depths some people will plumb to feel like they have some power. These toadies! Then when asked about the work they are doing, they turn and use the same ((#$(*@# acid snappishness with public.

[cynatnite]

4. some worthwhile snips

"he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him."

"Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed"

"According to Sen. David Vitter, a Republican ally of Bush's, the meeting came to a head when Mayor Nagin blew up during a fraught discussion of "who's in charge?" Nagin slammed his hand down on the table and told Bush, "We just need to cut through this and do what it takes to have a more-controlled command structure. If that means federalizing it, let's do it."

"A debate over "federalizing" the National Guard had been rattling in Washington for the previous three days. Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, "Well, what do you think of that, Governor?" Blanco told Bush, "I'd rather talk to you about that privately." To which Nagin responded, "Well, why don't you do that now?"

"Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat."

[amandabeech]

6. "Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat."

Could this be a reference to the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin during the last days of WWII?

What an apt analogy, except the war with * won't be over 'til January, 2009, when one of ours will take over and try to clean up this mess.

Unless he is removed. He won't resign.

[cynatnite]

7. I was thinking the very same thing

It was the last sentence of the article.

[amandabeech]

8. I wonder how many other reader of Newsweek will see the same thing.

History hasn't been taught well in our schools for some time.

[amandabeech]

5. At the end of this piece, the author discusses federalizing the NG.

My understanding is that if the NG is federalized, it cannot perform law enforcement duties unless the Insurrection Act is invoked, in which case the U.S. military would be able to act as police officers, too. Unless operating under the Insurrection Act, the U.S. military's role must be limited to support, like search and rescue, setting up communications, and bringing in supplies, like fresh water, food, generators and fuel.

However, it did not seem that any of the 3 tests for invocation were present, as set out here by a previous poster. The playing up of looting and lawlessness may have been an attempt to build a case for invoking the Insurrection Act.

The article completely fails to discuss this.

[bklyncowgirl]

9. Interesting article.

One thing seems clear. None of the elected officials in charge, from former cable exec. Nagin to the steel magnolia Blanco to the President of the United States were people who were trained and truly prepared to respond to a crisis.

Of the bunch, I think that Nagin seems to have shown the most initiative and probably bears the least blame. Blanco, frankly, as much as I want to defend her, I don't understand what is going on with her, she seems to have wanted to respond but didn't seem to know how or what to do and as for Bush, we've already seen on 9/11 how he functions in a crisis and it is not an inspiring sight. As for the voters, people who voted for Nagin and Blanco had no idea how they would respond in an emergency. Voters who voted for Bush knew, or should have known about his deer in the headlight stare as he stumbled through "My Pet Goat" while thousands of his fellow citizens died.

If this bit about them having to give him a goddamn DVD of TV accounts of the storm damage in order to wake him up and get his royal ass in gear, is true then we are in a very bad place in this country.

[Tower]

10. That personality trait is directly related to

his weird perception of reality. There really is no "reality" to the neocons. Everything is just spin and propaganda. It's all a matter of interpretation. Bury the photos of torture and voila! The torture never happened. Confiscate pictures of flag draped coffins and ta-da! The death toll is lessened.

Any rational human being would listen objectively as facts are imparted to them. There would be no need to get angry, because facts are simply facts.

[K-W]

11. Everyone needs to read this piece. EOM

[tjdee]

12. "Warm and hearty in public"? Who's that?

Bush never seems warm, nor hearty.

He seems like a liar who can snooker stupid people, that's how he appears in public.

[dogindia]

13. Hard to imagine potus who does not care enough to turn on tv during

the worst ever storm directly headed toward one of the great american cities and perhaps the most important port and oil distribution place.

What an outrage. How can this be? Incompetence just does not say it. It is criminal neglect. Utter arrogance and stupidity. The storm came in on Sunday. Thursday is just to late to wake up. To have a president who does not know what is happening is more than frightful.

[amandabeech]

14. He doesn't want to pollute his beautiful mind. n/t

[dogindia]

15. but we all knew by watching tv.

from page 3


The FEMA man found a phone, but he had trouble reaching senior officials in Washington. When he finally got someone on the line, the city officials kept hearing him say, "You don't understand, you don't understand."

[Spazito]

16. Kick because this really is a GOOD read!

I don't often kick my own threads, hell, I don't usually start threads but this is too good an article to be lost so quickly.