Time Mag: Dipping His Toe Into Disaster (Rips Bush)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101329,00.html

It isn't easy picking George Bush's worst moment last week. Was it his first go at addressing the crisis Wednesday, when he came across as cool to the point of uncaring? Was it when he said that he didn't "think anybody expected" the New Orleans levees to give way, though that very possibility had been forecast for years? Was it when he arrived in Mobile, Ala., a full four days after the storm made landfall, and praised his hapless Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director, Michael D. Brown, whose disaster credentials seemed to consist of once being the commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association? "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," said the President. Or was it that odd moment when he promised to rebuild Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's house--a gesture that must have sounded astonishingly tone-deaf to the homeless black citizens still trapped in the postapocalyptic water world of New Orleans. "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house--he's lost his entire house," cracked Bush, "there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

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.

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.

There was no breaking off from his commemoration in Coronado, Calif., of the 60th anniversary of victory over Japan, but there were videoconference calls and the like. The White House is "very, very slow sometimes," says a former Administration official. Besides, members of the A team were on vacation: chief of staff Andy Card was in Maine; Dick Cheney was in Wyoming; even Condoleezza Rice was out of town, shoe-shopping in Manhattan. Many of Bush's best p.r. minds, including media adviser Mark McKinnon, were in Greece at the wedding of White House communications director Nicolle Devenish. Had they been around, perhaps Bush would not have been accompanied only by his dog Barney when he returned from vacation in Crawford.

IMHO Bush will not recover from this.

I hope you're right-- but they've gotten away with SO MUCH
and each time I've thought, "This is it!!" and it hasn't been

If this isn't "it," we're in for it.
:(

"...That may be why the White House wheeled out his pitch-perfect wife Laura on Friday, to lend some genuine compassion to the moment."


:wow:

eom

drinking?

"In a crisis he can act paradoxically, appearing--almost simultaneously--strong and weak, decisive and vacillating..."

It's called mental illness. The signs of his alcoholism are so apparent to me.

"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."

He wasn't no Chamberlain - he was Nero.

And wen was he ever Churchill?

NEVER! That's time covering their Covering Ass!

Hey, think maybe the Freepers will start criticizing him? LOL!

Damn, I wish the search function was working, someone poast a great collection of quotes from FR from right after his speech on Friday. My favorite was the disgust dripping from one poster's message, which I'll paraphrase:

"He said he was looking forward to going to Louisiana. Like it was a bar mitzvah."

"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."

This is what pisses me off most about the MSM. They keep pretending that Bush has some redeeming qualities, that he has some political skills. He hasn't. The man is in way over his head and it's plain to most intelligent people (including, I'm sure, reporters for Time). The only skill he has is acting "Godly" and yet I'll bet I know the Bible better than he does (and I'm an atheist).

You know, I could forgive the guy for being a poor speaker and scared to speak in front of crowds if he was compassionate and a brilliant leader, but George Bush seems to be an amalgam of all that's bad in this country today.

BTW how's that leak investigation going. Doesn't have to be page one for me as long as it goes forward.

And why didn't they mention where he was on vacation or holed up?

And I'm glad time is bringing this all up NOW but I don't buy for a second that there was anything remotely like a leader in bush after 9/11.."My Pet Goat", More Photos OPs, Disappeared for 12 hours!

But, then I'm a 10%er!

What about "My Pet Goat" and his chickenshit retreat on Air Force One? If people are talking about his appearance at the WTC, it was a just a freakin' photo op staged at a time when many Americans were emotionally vulnerable. His "strength" that day was as contrived as his pathetic dress-up day when "Mission ccomplished" was declared.

If that shameful performance of cowardice and confusion -- My Pet Goat -- on 9/11 was Bush's finest hour, then he is beyond pathetic.

Please, spare me the hype and the bullshit. 911 happened because of this man and his bunch of raving incompetents.

Ignoring warnings doesn't impress me at all, be it an attack by terrorists or the levees busting because of neglects.

It was the finest hour of the NYC Firefighters, the NYPolice, the medical personnell and rescue workers, the people of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and the rest of the United States, and all those who offered support. It was the finest hour of local officials, even those I politically disagree with. For Bush, with his "New York bullhorn moment" it was a photo-op. His finest hour? For Bush, it lead to the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Insecurity, the steady erosion of FEMA and the installation of incompetents like Brown and Chertoff. It lead to sending troops and equipment to Iraq in an immoral adventure. Bush's photo-op of 9-11, and the way America bought into it, lead to the disaster in New Orleans.

I am not complaining about the editorial, simply that inane general consensus that because Bush eventually showed up on what remained of the Twin Towers that constitutes his "finest moment."