Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Our Dear Embattled Leader takes the blame for federal blunders

How bad must things be for the White House and Republicans for notoriously insensitive ODEL to take this step? Remember, both the WTC and the Iraqi War disasters have been treated like great victories by the Bushoviks.

Simon Schama, in yesterdays Guardian, sees a real difference in the circumstances of each of these disasters.
Slipstreaming behind the annual rituals of sorrow and reverence for 9/11, George W Bush has decreed that, five days later, on the 16th, there is to be a further day of solemnities on which the nation will pray for the unnumbered victims of Hurricane Katrina. Prayers (like vacations) are the default mode for this president who knows how to chuckle and bow the head in the midst of disaster but not, when it counts, how to govern or to command. If you feel the prickly heat of politics, summon a hymn to make it go away; make accountability seem a blasphemy.

Thus has George Bush become the Archbishop of Washington even as his aura as lord protector slides into the putrid black lagoon, bobbing with cadavers and slick with oil, that has swallowed New Orleans. No doubt the born-again president is himself sincere about invoking the Almighty. But you can hear the muttered advice in the White House: Mr President, we were in trouble after 9/11; the unfortunate episode of the schoolroom, My Little Goat and all that. But do what you did then; set yourself once more at the centre of the nation; go to the epicentre of the horror and embrace its heroes; make yourself the country's patriotic invigorator and all may yet be well.
Unless ODEL was speaking out of school, a real possibility, there must be a real sense of fear in the Bushoviks.

Addendum : "The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn’t get away with the inexcusable." - John Kerry on ODEL's remarks.

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