Former Aides Say Katrina Was 'Tipping Point' for Bush's Reputation

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/29/aides-say-katrina-tipping-point-bushs-reputation/

WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government's poor handling of the natural disaster.

"Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. P.R.? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: "Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin."

Their comments are a part of an oral history of the Bush White House that Vanity Fair magazine compiled for its February issue, which hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and nationally on Jan. 6. Vanity Fair published comments by current and former government officials, foreign ministers, campaign strategists and numerous others on topics that included Iraq, the anthrax attacks, the economy and immigration.

Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that as a new president, Bush was like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee whom critics said lacked knowledge about foreign affairs. When Bush first came into office, he was surrounded by experienced advisers like Vice President Dick Cheney and Powell, who Wilkerson said ended up playing damage control for the president.

"It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president -- because, let's face it, that's what he was -- was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire," Wilkerson said, adding that he considered Cheney probably the "most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur" he'd ever met.

"He became vice president well before George Bush picked him," Wilkerson said of Cheney. "And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush -- personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum."

On other topics, David Kuo, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, disputed the idea that the Bush White House was dominated by religious conservatives and catered to the needs of a religious right voting bloc.


"In the political affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at ... basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated."

I had no idea he even lived in NOLA (probably right off Bourbon St.) :eyes: :sarcasm:

What a bunch of rat's-ass pieces of filth. Three more weeks... three more weeks... like Jon Stewart said, "Can we have the bike now? We know it's a bike!"

We've essentially been leaderless since 2005.

Sheesh. It shows.

see the problem pretty easily:

"Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. P.R.? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: "Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin."


>snip<

"In the political affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at ... basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated."


I've put the problem in bold. The government was broken by them long before the public trust was, because their focus was on window-dressing. I can't help but think of a dozen times they openly talked about the run-up to Iraq as "rolling out product" or pretty cynically using tv news shows like "Meet the Press" to discuss the politics--but the policy? Not so much. Scott McClellan talked about the atmosphere of permanent campaign, and John DiIullio talked with Ron Suskind about the lack of a policy arm way back in the beginning--it was always about politics, ideology, and selling a line of goods. It was never about doing things right. The grown-ups weren't really in charge, they were the ones who got put out or marginalized. For her faults, I think Christie Whitman might've wanted to do her job but got neutered. The State Dept. had Powell, who probably could've contributed something on Iraq--neutered, and made to do tricks in front of the UN. Think of the ISG--ignored. All GWB's Daddy's connections--wasted experience.

I'm re-reading Suskind's The Price of Loyalty which covers Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's short but interesting term--really interesting now in light of the economic crisis. But it also highlights pretty well how the administration had one zero-affect, incurious guy at the center, surrounded by ideologues, just going through the motions of running a country. I think it was Dennis Miller who optimistically opined that Bush was aware of his limitations and so surrounded himself with people o quality, like a hole surrounding itself with a donut. Well, it seems he's more like a black hole. He surrounds himself with light, energy, matter, and they go....

Away.

What was the quote from O'Neill's book?

"Hey Andy get us some cheeseburgers!"

Not sure about this link (the source) but the text of the letter is the same as Suskind wrote about in Esquire:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/DiIulio.html

In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis, and they were even more overworked than the stereotypical, non-stop, 20-hour-a-day White House staff. Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but, on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking -- discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue.

Likewise, every administration at some point comes to think of the White House as its own private tree house, to define itself as "us" versus "them" on Capitol Hill, or in the media, or what have you, and, before 100 days are out, to vest ever more organizational and operational authority with the White House's political, press, and communications people, both senior and junior. I think, however, that the Bush administration -- maybe because they were coming off Florida and the election controversy, maybe because they were so unusually tight-knit and "Texas," maybe because the chief of staff, Andy Card, was more a pure staff process than a staff leader or policy person, or maybe for other reasons I can't recognize -- was far more inclined in that direction, and became progressively more so as the months pre-9/11 wore on.

This gave rise to what you might call Mayberry Machiavellis -- staff, senior and junior, who consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest, black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible. These folks have their predecessors in previous administrations (left and right, Democrat and Republican), but, in the Bush administration, they were particularly unfettered.

Maybe the AP thinks allowing infrastructure to deteriorate is natural, and totally incompetent rescue/response is natural, but I sure don't!

http://www.first-draft.com/hurricane_katrina/index.html for starters.

If they COULD HAVE spun it for Bush they WOULD HAVE spun it for Bush. It took a focking category five HURRICANE to interrupt their duties to their fascist masters.