Seriously, how stupid is Bush???

[919]

Good, crisp decisions

by kos

Mon Sep 12th, 2005 at 11:27:29 PDT

Justifying a five-week vacation, a petulant Bush said:

I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy.



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Then Katrina hit, and we saw what "good, crisp decisions", Bush-style, looked like. Not very good, not very crisp. Like when he claimed that no one had anticipated breeching of the levees, even though everyone had anticipated that very breech. Now, he's trying to explain his earlier ignorance.

What I was referring to is this: When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew. There was a sense of relaxation. And that's what I was referring to.

And I myself thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people probably over the airwaves say, The bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.

Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation at a critical moment.



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What the heck is he talking about? Now I know the sycophants on the Right will all nod on cue and applaud their infallible president's clear explanation. But really, "sense of relaxation?" "Dodged a bullet?" Aravosis has compiled the headlines screaming at us while Bush was feeling a "sense of relaxation":

I don't see any that claim, "whew, we dodged a bullet." Now, I can picture Chertoff, Brown, and Bush sitting around a table giving each other high-fives telling each other about that dodged bullet. But back in the real world, everyone outside of the Administration knew things were catastrophic, and no one, outside the administration, felt a "sense of relaxation".

No one.

 

[cutacrossshorty]

As someone within the White House confided (I believe it was Bartlett), "you're problem is that you are based in reality. We (Bush admin) make reality."

Can anyone imagine another president or presidential hopeful being so oblivious and out of touch?

 

[Coldweather]

History will record that George W. Bush was an intelligent prominent man from a prestigious Mayflower family who was not afraid to seek and fetch the WMD. We all love him very much.

 

[t3a]

since you asked.....

Can anyone imagine another president or presidential hopeful being so oblivious and out of touch?

John Kerry, man of the common folk . . . he understands your pain, really . .

The many homes of former Democratic Presidential candiate John F. Kerry:




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<CENTER>Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania (Assessed value: $3.7 million)</CENTER>





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<CENTER>Ketchum, Idaho ski getaway/vacation home (Assessed value: $4.9 million)</CENTER>





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</CENTER>





<CENTER>Washington, D.C - Georgetown area (Assessed value: $4.7 million)</CENTER>





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<CENTER>Nantucket, MA waterfront retreat on Brant Point (Assessed value: $9.2 million)</CENTER>





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<CENTER>Boston, Massachusetts - Beacon Hill home (Assessed value: $6.9)</CENTER>





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Total assessed value of all five homes = $29.4 million.

. . . and he sold this estate in Italy to activist actor George Clooney, just before announcing his candidacy for president. ($7.8 million)




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[cutacrossshorty]

John Kerry, man of the common folk . . . he understands your pain, really . .

What does this have to do with post #1 ?

This would be like me bringing up the guy who actually fought in Vietnam, as opposed to, the guy who used connections of the wealthy and influential to avoid going.

Totally unrelated to the topic.

 

[JinnRikki]

When John Kerry buys a baseball team....we'll talk then.

 

[redpimp]

i cant stand this turd head, not because of his money but because he is one of the biggest idiots to ever disgress a political platform on anything!!!


And i still cant believe these dems that want to line this imbecile up for another run for the presidency!!!

If they do, i predict jeb bush and probably c. Rice as Vp will trounce him again while is bumbl]ling on about homo sex , vietnam badges and friggin yellow bellied stances on everything in his friggin life!!! I wonder how that guy makes it out of the house, he must have a problem figuring out if the left foot should take the first step out of bed or if it should be the right foot first!!! (I guess he finally jumps out on both feet only to be stymied by mind numblingly hard decision between boxers or breifs...(he probably looks up cnn for a poll on which one to go with that will not piss off whatever interest group makes either one!!!!)

 

[JinnRikki]

I wonder how that guy makes it out of the house, he must have a problem figuring out if the left foot should take the first step out of bed or if it should be the right foot first!!! (I guess he finally jumps out on both feet only to be stymied by mind numblingly hard decision between boxers or breifs...(he probably looks up cnn for a poll on which one to go with that will not piss off whatever interest group makes either one!!!!)

Hard pressed to know if your talking about bush or kerry.<!-- / message -->

 

[cutacrossshorty]

Does anybody know anyone (Other than Bush, Chertoff, & Brown) that thought Louisiana and Mississippi had "dodged a bullet" a couple of days after the storm ? Forgot about the fact that it's your job to be informed.

 

[919]

Does anybody know anyone (Other than Bush, Chertoff, & Brown) that thought Louisiana and Mississippi had "dodged a bullet" a couple of days after the storm ? Forgot about the fact that it's your job to be informed.

well, to be fair to bush, he was on vacation....i mean, can we really expect him to keep up with current events when he's busy clearing brush?

 

[919]

Froomkin:

Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you've been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?

Maybe not so much.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.

Maybe it's Bush's sinking poll numbers -- he is, after all, undeniably an unpopular president now. Maybe it's the way that the federal response to the flood has cut so deeply against Bush's most compelling claim to greatness: His resoluteness when it comes to protecting Americans.

But for whatever reason, critical observations and insights that for so long have been zealously guarded by mainstream journalists, and only doled out in teaspoons if at all, now seem to be flooding into the public sphere.

An emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us.

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[redpimp]

Hard pressed to know if your talking about bush or kerry.<!-- / message -->

One of them doesnt have to worry about any of this because he has C.Rice by his side to pick out his tighty whities and fix him his lunch box etc etc..

 

[919]

Living Too Much in the Bubble?
A bungled initial response to Katrina exposed the perils of a rigid, insular White House. Inside Bush's plan to show he isn't isolated
By MIKE ALLEN / WASHINGTON

President Bush was seated in the White House Situation Room, watching military and disaster officials beaming in from the Gulf Coast on the giant screen of his secure video- teleconferencing system. It had been nearly a week since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, ripping gashes in the Superdome and swamping homes up to their eaves. Bush, more fidgety than usual, was hearing a jumble of conflicting reports about the number of refugees in the Convention Center and the whereabouts of two trucks and trailers loaded with water and food. Furious, he interrupted and glared at the camera transmitting his image back to Mississippi. "I know y'all are trying as hard as you can, but it ain't cuttin' it," the Commander in Chief barked. "I wanna know why. We gotta do better."

This was not so much a moment of executive command as one that betrayed Bush's growing sense that his presidency was taking a beating too. A TIME poll conducted last week shows how badly it has been wounded: his overall approval rating has dropped to 42%, his lowest mark since taking office. And while 36% of respondents said they were satisfied with his explanation of why the government was not able to provide relief to hurricane victims sooner, 57% said they were dissatisfied--an ominous result for a politician who banks on his image as a straight shooter.

Longtime Bush watchers say they are not shocked that he missed his moment--one of his most trusted confidants calls him "a better third- and fourth-quarter player," who focuses and delivers when he sees the stakes. What surprised them was that he still appeared to be stutter-stepping in the second week of the crisis, struggling to make up for past lapses instead of taking control with a grand gesture. Just as Katrina exposed the lurking problems of race and poverty, it also revealed the limitations of Bush's rigid, top-down approach to the presidency. "The extremely highly centralized control of the government--the engine of Bush's success--failed him this time," a key adviser said.

The missteps on Katrina came at a crucial moment in Bush's second term, when his top legislative priority at home, Social Security reform, was already on life support and the war in Iraq was becoming a mounting economic and political burden. The Administration that had been determined to defy history and ward off the second-term curse--and early lame-duck status--by controlling the agenda and seizing opportunities appears increasingly at the mercy of events, at home and abroad.

And as if the West Wing were suddenly snakebit, his franchise player, senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, was on the disabled list for part of last week, working from home after being briefly hospitalized with painful kidney stones.

Bush has always said the Presidency is about doing big things, and a friend who chatted with him one evening in July said he seemed to be craving a fresh mission even though the one he has pursued in Iraq is far from being on a steady footing. "He was looking for the next really important thing to do," the friend said. "You could hear him almost sorting it out to himself. He just sort of figured it would come."

But when it did, he did not immediately show that he sensed its magnitude. On the Monday that Hurricane Katrina landed and the Crescent City began drowning, Bush was joshing with Senator John McCain on the tarmac of an Air Force base in Arizona, posing with a melting birthday cake. Like a scene out of a Michael Moore mockumentary, he was heading into a long-planned Medicare round table at a local country club, joking that he had "spiced up" his entourage by bringing the First Lady, then noting to the audience that he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from Air Force One. "I said, 'Are you working with the Governor?'" Bush recounted. "He said, 'You bet we are.'" But the President was not talking about the killer storm. He was talking about immigration, and the Governor was Arizona's.

The day after Katrina's landfall, Bush awoke in San Diego and just after 5 a.m. local time talked to an aide about the seriousness of the storm, then convened an emergency conference call of his top staff. He was scheduled to spend a few more nights at the ranch, but an aide said he blurted out, "We're going back." Bush also said he wanted Cabinet members recalled from vacations. At a Cabinet meeting last week, according to a participant, Bush said he knew he had "a big problem to solve."

From tarmac to Cabinet room, the President's performance was uneven at the very least, and associates say that can be explained by several factors. Some are specific to his CEO style, others endemic to second terms, but all of them came together in early September much like Katrina itself. The first was his elongated summer vacation: Bush upped to nearly five weeks his traditional month of working vacation at the Crawford ranch, a vacuum that always alarmed his aides because it gave others an opening for capturing the news agenda. While the staff agonized about whether he should try to head off mounting criticism of the Iraq war by meeting a second time with Cindy Sheehan to discuss the death of her soldier son, Bush rejected the idea, saying part of the job is to expect protesters wherever he goes and he needs to "go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

In addition, former aides say there has always been enormous pressure on White House officials to take only the most vital decisions to Bush and let the bureaucracy deal with everything else. Bush does not appear to tap sources deep inside his government for information, the way his father or Bill Clinton did, preferring to get reports through channels. A highly screened information chain is fine when everything is going well, but in a crisis it can hinder. Louisiana officials say it took hours for Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to reach Bush (although when she did, he talked to her soothingly, according to White House officials). "His inner circle takes pride in being able to tell him 'everything is under control,' when in this case it was not," said a former aide. "The whole idea that you have to only burden him with things 'that rise to his level' bit them this time."
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