GOP's 3-point response to Katrina: Loot, Smear and Loot Some More

[StefanX]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1103581,00.html

By late last week, Administration aides were describing a three-part comeback plan. The first: Spend freely, and worry about the tab and the consequences later. "Nothing can salve the wounds like money," said an official who helped develop the strategy. "You'll see a much more aggressively engaged President, traveling to the Gulf Coast a lot and sending a lot of people down there."

{Note: Lots of money is going to the usual Bush cronies: Halliburton, Blackwell, Allbaugh's clients.}

The second tactic could be summed up as, Don't look back. The White House has sent delegates to meetings in Washington of outside Republican groups who have plans to blame the Democrats and state and local officials. In the meantime, it has no plans to push for a full-scale inquiry like the 9/11 commission, which Bush bitterly opposed until the pressure from Congress and surviving families made resistance futile. Congressional Democrats have said they are unwilling to settle for anything less than an outside panel, but White House officials said they do not intend to give in, and will portray Democrats as politicking if they do not accept a bipartisan panel proposed by Republican congressional leaders. Ken Mehlman, the party's chairman and Bush's campaign manager last year, told TIME that viewers at home will think it's "kind of ghoulish, the extent to which you've got political leaders saying not 'Let's help the people in need' but making snide comments about vacations."

The third move: Develop a new set of goals to announce after Katrina fades. Advisers are proceeding with plans to gin up base-conservative voters for next year's congressional midterm elections with a platform that probably will be focused around tax reform. Because Bush will need a dynamic salesman to make sure that initiative goes better than his Social Security proposal, advisers tell TIME there is once again talk of replacing Treasury Secretary John Snow. There are no plans to delay tax cuts to pay for the New Orleans reconstruction or the Iraq war, and Bush is likely to follow through on his vow to veto anticipated congressional approval of increased federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research.