Even when he makes something of a concession, George Bush still can’t completely be a man about it.
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government,” Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of
Iraq.“To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” Bush said.
“To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right”. He can’t ever say “my fault”, “my bad”, it always has to be weasel words. Their internal polling, especially among the GOP faithful, must be really bad to have brought this on.
Don’t let this stop the independent bipartisan investigation. We have to know what went wrong, who’s to blame, and how to fix it. We can start by removing the Bush cronies infesting FEMA.
Libs like Oliver wouldn’t be satisfied if Bush set himself on fire after curing cancer and ending world hunger.
I don’t understand how those were weasel words. “To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsiility.” To me that means he is offering himself as accountable for whatever was not done, or what was done wrong. A “my bad”, or “my fault” accomplishes what? I remember when people were all up in arms about getting an “apology” from the President for slavery. What would that really accomplish? Would that change something? I am a liberal, a democrat, and a realist. Let’s fix everything, and then look at what we can do to change things. A “bi-partisan investigation” will probably yield nothing due to the debate. Let’s move on.
Bush is in charge of the federal government, and “To the extent the federal government didn t fully do its job”, he is taking responsibility. He can’t take responsibility for the incompetence of the Governor and the Mayor in not implementing their own disaster plan. What’s the problem? Or is this just another case of BDS(Dush Derangement Syndrome) on your part, Oliver?
I’m sure now, because Oliver is “fair and balanced”, he will call for Blanco & Nagin to make the same mea culpas.
What if George Washington had said: “to the extent that the cherry tree has fallen down, I take responsiblity?”
Just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?
Now let’s talk about those WMD again, Mr. Bush. You can do it. I….take….
You don’t come here often, do you?
C’mon, OW. The glass is half full. This is progress. I don’t think the words “I take responsibility” have ever crossed the man’s lips in his life.
“To the extent that I defunded the levees, appointed incompetents to head the federal disaster agencies, failed to plan ahead, and prioritized big government giveaways of taxpayer money to cronies and campaign contributors over making those plans effective, I take responsibility.”
Oooh ooh, how bout this one:
“To the extent that there were incompetent-failure-related-activies on the Gulf Coast, I take responsibility”
I think I have a new favorite catch-phrase.
Good for Bush to say “I take responsibility”. The man-child has finally hit adolescence. I would like Nagin to do the same as well. His biggest mistake was relying too much on the Feds? Even if true, don’t say that. And on Blanco, I haven’t heard anything from her one way or another.
You’re doing a heck of a job, Sadie.
Haven’t heard anything from Blanco?
Try this.
Funny. A yet-unnamed “senior Bush administration official” told the Washington Post and Newsweek a very different tale.
Quaker,
The ultimate document you refer to is being spun by the left to try and absolve Blanco. No soap. It (the document) merely renders an opinion that Blanco (and Bush) took the proper legal steps in conjunction with the applicable regulation. It doesn’t speak to subjective matters. Merely that the sequence was proper per the law.
Dugger
Funny. A yet-unnamed senior Bush administration official told the Washington Post and Newsweek a very different tale.
??
Read the whole 25 page thing. Conyers is almost dishonest in his exploitation of it.
Quaker — to the extent that you have paid me a compliment, I thank you.
This is fun, what a perfectly Republican expression. It means anything and yet it means nothing. It sounds like you’re saying something and yet, you’re not.
Kinda sums up the entire Bush administration.
rightisright: “Libs like Oliver wouldn t be satisfied if Bush set himself on fire after curing cancer and ending world hunger.”
Actually, we wouldn’t be satisfied. If he did cure cancer and end world hunger, it would be an amazing turnaround from his current policies and priorities. He would have demostrated that he finally woke up and decided to do some good in the world, instead of just funnelling federal monies to his big business cronies. Setting himself on fire would be dumb, since there would be so much more that the new improved Bush could be doing.
Of course, how likely is it that he would even *attempt* to cure cancer and end world hunger, let alone succeed? Zero, Nada, Zilch. So, bring on the self-immolation so that we can get someone else in there who will at least try to solve the world’s problems, instead of making them worse.
There’s an old joke: The difference between “blame” and “responsibility” is that people who are to blame lose their jobs, while people who are “responsible” do not.
I’ll have to say that right now, I’m not sure why we are demanding apologies from anyone, from Mayor Nagin on up. It doesn’t change what happened. And it likely won’t prevent it from happening again. If they screwed up, well that’s what elections are for.
This all reminds me of Janet Reno’s stone-faced “I accept full responsibility” confession for the 1993 Waco debacle that left 80 dead at the hands of the FBI and BATF. Reno didn’t lose her job (Clinton never asked her to resign either, remember?) and even after we had “hearings,” no one was seriously punished. Best as I can remember, the worst that happened was that some bureaucrats “retired,” with golden parachute government retirement plans. And Timothy McVeigh used Waco as the reasoning behind the bomb he planted in Oklahoma City two years later.
Bush can do several things to help fix this mess. First, we should have a public debate about the proper role of FEMA. FEMA is not a first-responder. It was never designed to be. But is that what we want? In what ways should FEMA be able to usurp the authority of county and state authorities? How far ahead of time should they be deployed during hurricane season? What if they are deployed in Miami, then the storm changes course and hits Savannah? We should spend some time and develop a new, comprehensive set of rules for FEMA to follow so there will be no public misunderstanding of their job. FEMA will never be perfect, but there is no excuse for misinterpretation and fingerpointing.
Second, Bush should step forward and end the race baiting swirling around the hurricane’s aftermath. Malkin (or Malagang, if you prefer) has a good post today pointing out the annoying references made by civil rights leaders to “my people.” Well, here in America we are all Americans. If you look at refugees as “my people vs. your people” then you are part of the problem, not the solution. If you insist on accusing whites of “letting blacks die,” of it you think the Red Cross is “too white” to be helping out, then you deserve to be publicly castigated. The thousands of church volunteers who have housed and supported tens of thousands of displaced minorities from New Orleans don’t seem to have a “my people-your people” attitute problem.
Third, Bush can offer as much Federal assistance as possible to those who participate in Federal programs right now (SBA, HUD, mortgage assistance, etc.) and — most importantly — to the thousands of private charities, churches, and civic organizations who are, right now, housing, feeding, and schooling displaced New Orleans citizens. He should also announce a registration and tracking program for those refugees on Federal assistance (Medicaid, AFDC, unemployment, etc.) so they don’t lose benefits. This isn’t the time for another massive boondoggle, pork and cronyism-laden Federal program. This is the time for money to be freed up and channeled directly to those who need it most and who can spend it the most wisely. And heck, maybe Bush can even cut some pork out of the existing budget in order to offset this money. We wouldn’t want to see the deficit increase, now would we?
If Bush made a speech outlining those three things, he would do himself and the rest of us an immense amount of good.
“First, we should have a public debate about the proper role of FEMA. FEMA is not a first-responder. It was never designed to be. ”
People keep saying this. I’m not sure that’s accurate. Jeffrey Itell, who led the GAO investigation into FEMA response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 had this to say:
http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/jeffrey_itell_on_fema1
This indicates that perhaps FEMA could have been more active in the lead up to Katrina’s landfall and not be so passive. And the problems that FEMA faced in 1992 were the same ones in 2005 and were fixed in the 1990s.
“Almost dishonest”? What does that mean?
Conyers is treating it as if it absolves Blanco of any wrong doing or misjudgements re Katrina, when all it is really saying is that, in effect, the proper sequential legal steps were taken by all sides to enact emergency procedures.
Conyers said “This report closes the book on the Bush Administration’s attempts to evade accountability by shifting the blame to the Governor of Louisiana for the Administration’s tragically sluggish response to Katrina. It confirms that the Governor did everything she could to secure relief for the people of Louisiana and the Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time.”
Take that and then read Conclusions (pg 12 I think ) of the report. I may be too generous in saying “almost dishonest.”
Dugger
I am surprised Bush even managed to get the words out without gumbling them up. (…fool me twice, shame on — shame on — don’t get fooled again…) The whole FEMA thing is just another balloon burst of the myth of Republican competence.
Maybe. “Almost dishonest” sounds kinda like “nearly pregnant.”
My favorite kind of “independent bipartisan investigation”: Get rid of the Repubicans before we begin.