Bush's leadership a partisan issue: "Bush can learn on the job"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Bush's leadership a partisan issue

By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff | September 8, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/08/bushs_leadership_a_partisan_issue/

WASHINGTON -- Reeling from criticism of President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, some Republican strategists are invoking a comparison with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when initial concern over the president's response gave way to widespread respect for his leadership. They hope media appearances by officials describing relief efforts -- including Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao -- will build confidence in Bush's response, cementing the impression left by Sept. 11 that Bush can learn on the job.

But Democratic critics say that, this time, the public's first impression will be the lasting one, and yesterday Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada urged a key committee to investigate whether President Bush's nearly five-week vacation in Crawford, Texas, had any impact on the government's hurricane response.

The president's supporters acknowledge that shifting the political narrative from one in which Bush is cast as aloof or incompetent to one in which a caught-off-guard chief rises to the occasion will work only if conditions on the battered Gulf Coast continue to improve.

"One potential narrative is that the administration sometimes starts slow, but it finishes strong. The president locks in, and he's a problem solver," said a senior administration official. This same official, however, stressed: "We have to get this right substantively. There's not a lot you can do to spin this."

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Thumb sucking Butcher of New Orleans

And that is just a fact. It is not partisan.

[Hissyspit]

2. There may have been 'widespread respect' for Bush after 9/11

...but it was f*cking illusion, as Americans are sloowwwwly figuring out.

[Old and In the Way]

6. That was entirely the creation of the media.

There are no facts with which to make that assertion...just the fact that it's been said over and over in the media. If you say it enough times, it becomes "the truth".

Bush sat for 7 minutes while NYC was under attack, reading a book. Then he made himself scarce the rest of the day. He failed as a leader that day. The follow-up was pure marketing. And the media has willingly gone on with this meme for years....in spite of knowing that he ignored warnings and wouldn't accept an independent investigation...leading to the 9/11 whitewash.

I'll never buy this bullshit that he was some kind of superman after 9/11. All he did was show-up to do his job in NYC one day, said a few words with a fireman as a prop....that makes him a leader?

No, and you only have to look to his "leadership" as Katrina was developing to know that he is totally a figment of the media's imagination.

[meti57b]

3. Did we use the word "leader" much before it became a republican frame?

I just don't recollect the need to use "leader" in the past for any president.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

5. We've used "fearless leader" a la Rocky & Bullwinkle on DU...

...but you're right...Bush is the leader of his "base," and that's where the line is drawn.

As a "president," Bush makes a great drunken frat boy.

[renie408]

4. Stupid fucker

Don't they GET IT?? Its TOO LATE...the problem WAS the slow start, dumbass. And the stupid fucker has been on the job for FIVE YEARS.

Its ten days out and CNN is just getting meaner and meaner about the WH and the federal response. It ain't getting any better too soon.

[melody]

7. problem solvers don't ignore warnings and leave people dying

Those are problem creators.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

8. Even if they are on "working vacation?"

Gotta tell ya...I LOVED the progression.

From:

1). "Bush on 5-week vacation"...to:

2). Bush on "working vacation at White House West"...to:

3). "Bush never gets a rest" (Scott McClellan, saying that "being a president is a 24 hour a day job")...

:grr:

[Arkana]

9. He's had 5 goddamn years to "learn on the job."

This is more bullshit, meant to distract people from the fact that * is fatally incompetent.


"One potential narrative is that the administration sometimes starts slow, but it finishes strong. The president locks in, and he's a problem solver," said a senior administration official.

Sorry, but starting slow is grossly unacceptable in a case where thousands of people lose their homes after a natural disaster.