"He Can't Threaten To Get Katrina "Dead or Alive"

[Carla in Ca]

Dipping His Toe Into Disaster (Time Magazine)

snip...

Bush seemed so regularly out of it last week, it made you wonder if he was stuck in the same White House bubble of isolation that confined his dad. Too often, W. looked annoyed. Or he smiled when he should have been serious. Or he swaggered when simple action would have been the right move.

snip...

And he was so slow. Everyone knew on Sunday morning that Katrina was a killer. Yet when the levees broke after the storm, the White House slouched toward action. And this from a leader who made his bones with 9/11. In a crisis he can act paradoxically, appearing--almost simultaneously--strong and weak, decisive and vacillating, Churchill and Chamberlain. This week he was more Chamberlain.

snip...



Of course, Bush has a history of floundering at the start of a crisis and then finding his voice. Handling Sept. 11 is now considered his finest hour, even though he stumbled dramatically at first. But last week offered no New York bullhorn moment. He can't threaten to get Katrina "dead or alive." The victims didn't need a photo-op gesture of reassurance so much as water, food and escape, plus help for the long haul. And for an Administration that has staked its reputation on fighting the war on terrorism, no one can be very encouraged by the first crisis test-drive of the Department of Homeland Security. What's more, while Americans might have rallied around Bush as he faced a foreign threat, this time the enemy is his own bureaucracy, the one that left American refugees to fend for themselves far longer than anybody thinks is acceptable.



MORE, A great read.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101329-1,00.html>

[Systematic Chaos]

1. "Handling Sept. 11 is now considered his finest hour"

Is that like "...and then the terminal cancer patient coughed up his finest chunk of lung tissue"?

:eyes:

[July]

5. I can never understand this claim.

And I notice that it's always made with a mention of the "bullhorn moment." As far as I can tell, the sum total of his wonderfulness concerning 9/11 was standing on the rubble. Which any fleabitten mongrel could do.

[Spinzonner]

2. Will he tell the Caribbean to "Bring it on" ?

[Endangered Specie]

3. No but he can sure as hell say there are WMDs...

that being Weather of Mass Destruction.

[Carla in Ca]

4. Ohhh, that's a good one

My poster at this weeks protest will be either


BUSH (in red) THE MASTER OF DISASTER...OR...


BUSH (IN RED) IS AMERICA'S WORST DISASTER


Which one do you like best?

[Endangered Specie]

9. master of disaster...

rhymes :)

[magnolia]

6. Um...let's not forget...

He never did get Bin Laden...dead or alive. Instead they renamed him...Saddama Bin Ladin!

There was no Bush moment. The country was in a state of shock and not thinking clearly. In a disaster...like in "The Poseidon Adventure" someone claims to be the leader and everyone else follows like zombies. That's what happened to us. For a few days, and weeks almost everyone admired Bush. I'm proud to say that I never skipped a beat in my disgust with him. When those towers came down I had two equally nightmarish thoughts: 1) We've been attacked. 2) Bush is president!

In this case he didn't even step up to be the leader. I guess he thought he had that covered.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

7. OH YES HE CAN! He'll SMOKE Katrina out of her CAVE! He'll...

...oh.

Sorry.

Never mind. Carry on, all!



:evilgrin:

[MO_Dem]

8. If you're not with us

They can't use that one, because it looks like w and FEMA were on the side of the flood, not "us". w has demonstrated, for the whole world to see, that he is NOT "with us"

[windbreeze]

10. and I, for one

am getting sick and damned tired of 9/11 being beat to death, sick of it, you hear???..and for it being used as an excuse for every other time this nincompoop has failed to do his goddamned job...We fucking PAY his wages, damn it....put up or fucking shut up..and everyone else, stop using 9/11 as an excuse...it was nothing but a FAILURE...in the extreme essence of the word...and WHAT has happened in NO and LA this past week...is the exclamation point on that failure!!..
windbreeze