NYT: Few Decisions to Make, Much Time to Be Seen (* photo-ops)

[kskiska]

AUSTIN, Tex., Sept. 24 - As he emerged Saturday morning from the "battle cab" deep inside the Northern Command's headquarters in Colorado Springs, President Bush caught sight of a famous image of himself: with bullhorn in hand at ground zero on Sept. 14, 2001.

At the invitation of a sergeant major in the Marines, he wrote "May God Bless America" on the photo and signed it, before moving on to the next hurricane briefing.

But as the White House has learned several times this week, when a president watches the gears of government mesh during a natural disaster, it is hard to find command moments like that one, four years and 10 days ago, when Mr. Bush told the world he was going after the terrorists.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush moved from one emergency command center to another, looking concerned, asking questions, thanking emergency workers and trying to figure out how lessons from this storm would help in future natural disasters or terrorist attacks, said the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan.

(snip)

But however tantalizingly close, the ranch was clearly off-limits on this trip. The last night Mr. Bush spent there was just after the levees broke in New Orleans. While he returned to Washington the next day, flying over the flooded city on the way, his initial presence at the ranch and images of him viewing the disaster from the climate-controlled comfort of Air Force One reinforced the image of a leader detached. No one could afford that on Saturday.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/national/nationalspecial/25bush.html

[rodeodance]

1. yup photo op day for Jr!!

But unlike the events that have defined his presidency so far - the response to Sept. 11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - the reality was that there weren't many decisions for the president to make. Rescue and recovery is very different than retaliation and war.

No matter. As the country's attention was fixed on its television sets, Mr. Bush was pictured in command centers, a deliberate effort by the White House to strike a different image than the one that dominated a month ago. Here in the state capital, the second of three stops in sun-splashed cities that missed Hurricane Rita's wrath, Mr. Bush headed to the underground Emergency Operations Center, run by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

He had familiar faces around: the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff; the two senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn; Representative Tom Delay of Texas; and Mr. Bush's successor as governor, Rick Perry.

"Nobody asked for these things, but when they come we have a duty," Mr. Bush said. "I'm really here to let the folks in Texas know that the federal government knows we have a responsibility to support you in the mission of saving lives first and foremost and then helping rebuild their lives.".......

[justgamma]

5. Shut up, Shrub!

You thought that it wasn't your job to take care of NOLA. Now you think it's your duty!!! You could have picked up a phone! You could have even pretended you gave a damn! You were more interested in prancing around with a guitar!
You still don't care about people! The only thing you give a damn about is your freaking image! Well we ain't buying your Bushit!!




:nuke:

[Bozita]

2. Didn't David Gregory's questioning alter Chimpy's travel plans?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. If he had only done 1/4 of this in the last week of August

the world would be dramatically different now.

sure, all those people would most likely be dead, but the chimp would have not had to take heat about it.

what an idiot.

[kath]

4. Actually, a lot of them would still be alive if rescuers had been allowed

in to conduct search-and-rescue missions in anything even remotely resembling a timely fashion.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. well, that is debateable, given the cluster-fuck

of an operation it was despite the FEMA screwu-ps

there is no way to defend that either way.

[belle]

7. Oh, man, the contempt is just oozing between the lines there.

Polite and technically "objective" enough, to be sure, but...ouch.

>But however tantalizingly close, the ranch was clearly off-limits on this trip.

There is no love there at all.