a dime's worth, in Truman dollars

[auntAgonist]

Message: I Care About the Black Folks


By FRANK RICH
Published: September 18, 2005

ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.
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The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.

In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.

Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html?ex=1127620800&en=e434b53b47c03b8e&ei=5070&emc=eta1

[VPStoltz]

1. Along with Krugman, Rich is the most cogent voice in print.

[auntAgonist]

4. I know you're right !!

[opihimoimoi]

2. An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure.....

Now, Bushy is trying to throw money at his sagging poll numbers hoping for a revival.... too little too late...he is livid with rage, none of his stooges gave him the right answers in the way it could be accepted and down went the CURTAIN.....

Get the HOOK, yank that dufus off the stage...

[auntAgonist]

3. He's worse than Katrina ..

A storm out of control.

[opihimoimoi]

5. Loose Cannon, Loose Puppet, Loose Brain.....

Bush is a LOSER

[auntAgonist]

6. don't want this to get lost ...