Katrina: When Bush looked away a second time
Aug 29 2015Vacationing on his ranch in the August before 9/11, George W. Bush famously brushed off a briefing hand-delivered by a CIA agent warning “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U. S.”. But it was his reaction to Katrina, when once again away from the White House vacationing at the ranch, that finally sent his approval ratings into a swoon. On the 10th anniversary of devastation to New Orleans, here is a piece written days after Katrina by a writer now at Let's Fix This Country.
On the Tuesday fully 24 hours after Katrina, the White House inner circle held a conference call on whether to suggest to President Bush that he cut short his 5-week vacation by a couple of days, reported Newsweek. He can be “cold and snappish”, said the magazine, and none of his yes-men (Bush doesn’t brook disagreement) wanted to be the messenger bringing bad tidings.
He did leave the ranch but went in the other direction — a ceremony in San Diego marking the end of World War II was his priority. The American public knew from newspapers and television that New Orleans was under water, with corpses floating in the streets, whereas White House communications adviser Dan Bartlett could see that Bush did not seem fully aware of the devastation. To bring the President to the same level as the public, Bartlett worked up a DVD of news clips to show him, an insider told Newsweek.
The president famously does not read newspapers, but “it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there”.
Flying Over a Flyover StateHeaded east for the first time, the closest he got to New Orleans was to peer out the window of Air Force One on the way to a Good Morning America interview with Diane Sawyer, in which he was clueless:
“Well, there's a lot of food on its way. A lot of water on the way. And there's a lot of boats and choppers headed that way. Boats and choppers headed that way. It just takes a while to float 'em!"
No Giuliani, who had choked on the dust of the World Trade collapse four years prior, Bush did not go to ground in New Orleans until Thursday, over three days after Katrina struck, where he would say to Michael Brown, the FEMA head who shortly be forced to resign, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”.
In televised comments two days after floods that have left possibly thousands dead and a million homeless, the former cheerleader somehow found something positive in the disaster saying, “America will be a stronger place for it".
Trent Lott is former Senate Majority Leader from Mississippi who lost that position over remarks that he regretted desegregation. With tens of thousands of poor blacks stranded in New Orleans without food or water, Bush exhibited his singular talent for striking the wrong note by choosing Lott as the beneficiary of his commiseration. Lott's house had been destroyed. Bush had this to say: “Out of the rubbles [sic] of Trent Lott’s house there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” For yet another sleepwalking reaction to a U.S. catastrophe, Bush’s [approval ratings] have hit new lows.
Please subscribe if you haven't, or post a comment below about this article, or
click here to go to our front page.
Thanks for digging up the truth, even though it makes many uncomfortable, including a previous commenter.
The best thing that George W Bush achieved in his life was getting re-elected. The worst thing for his legagcy was getting re-elected. 2005 was the year the house of cards came tumbing down: Hurricane Katrina, Dubai Ports deal, Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court and, finally, even GOP supporters had to admit it wasn’t just the Liberal Media, Iraq really was going to hell in a hand basket…
The story above is pure BS. Knowing people in N.O. I was glued to the TV. It went something like this The mayor Nagin? screwed around from the beginning for a few days did not request help the female governor did want Fed help afraid someone else would be the hero by then they called on the feds–sort of. Nagin damned near was hanged in the street by his own people. I think he faced some problem because he ran off to TX in the middle of all this. If you wabt dates etc. go find it yoursek=lf. I know what I watched.
Pure BS? President Bush himself noted in his memoir, “Decision Points.” “I should have recognized the deficiencies sooner and intervened faster,”
It is the responsibility of the federal government to step in and not wait for the locally incompetent to act, and that was the failing.