The Most Powerful Man on the Planet?
I picked this up over at K/O. It is from This Is Not Over and it is brilliant. This is a spot on analysis of the reason Bush's polls are in the tank and why they won't recover.
The heart of this analysis is that Bush simply doesn't care. When faced with all of the suffering and with the entire power of the United States government at his disposal, Bush dithered.
"My problem with Bush -- and here, I do indeed address Bush individually, as a guy -- is that during the time that the crisis was developing, from Monday to Friday, he never seemed to experience any actual sense of urgency as a result of the simple fact that people were, minute by minute and hour by hour, dying."
If Bush wanted the problem solved. If he wanted food and water to get to the Superdome, he had the power to do that. But, we have no evidence that he ever even raised his voice and demanded that more be done. In fact, by the end of the week, we had two images of Bush's lack of understanding.
First he turns to the director of FEMA and tells him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Later in a briefing for Congress, when Minority Leader Pelosi asks Bush why "Brownie" still has a job after all that has gone wrong, Bush looks at Pelosi and asks, "what didn't go right?"
Why didn't the leader of our country, act like a leader? Why in this moment of crisis, did he not demand that something be done to help American's trapped in an American city?
"I want to hear about how he was demanding that extraordinary steps be taken. I want to hear about how he sent his lawyers into a room -- he had four days, you know -- and demanded that they come back in an hour with a plan for him to send the Marines into New Orleans with 100 trucks of food and water, posse comitatus or not. "
Read the whole thing and the rest of the blog. Excellent stuff.
The heart of this analysis is that Bush simply doesn't care. When faced with all of the suffering and with the entire power of the United States government at his disposal, Bush dithered.
"My problem with Bush -- and here, I do indeed address Bush individually, as a guy -- is that during the time that the crisis was developing, from Monday to Friday, he never seemed to experience any actual sense of urgency as a result of the simple fact that people were, minute by minute and hour by hour, dying."
If Bush wanted the problem solved. If he wanted food and water to get to the Superdome, he had the power to do that. But, we have no evidence that he ever even raised his voice and demanded that more be done. In fact, by the end of the week, we had two images of Bush's lack of understanding.
First he turns to the director of FEMA and tells him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Later in a briefing for Congress, when Minority Leader Pelosi asks Bush why "Brownie" still has a job after all that has gone wrong, Bush looks at Pelosi and asks, "what didn't go right?"
Why didn't the leader of our country, act like a leader? Why in this moment of crisis, did he not demand that something be done to help American's trapped in an American city?
"I want to hear about how he was demanding that extraordinary steps be taken. I want to hear about how he sent his lawyers into a room -- he had four days, you know -- and demanded that they come back in an hour with a plan for him to send the Marines into New Orleans with 100 trucks of food and water, posse comitatus or not. "
Read the whole thing and the rest of the blog. Excellent stuff.
posted by RJB at 4:33 PM
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