Posted on 09/08/2005 7:53:13 PM PDT by Crackingham
As President Bush flew this week to the Gulf Coast for his second post-Katrina visit, an aide said the trip reflected Bush's usual routine of "seeing as much as possible and getting information from different places."
Not quite.
Bush did not visit with any angry evacuees in New Orleans. As Katrina approached, Bush and his top aides spent days apparently unaware that New Orleans might be flooded - despite many warnings, some from inside his own administration. Afterwards, he heaped praise on officials responsible for the slow and initially disorganized disaster-relief efforts. His aides dismiss demands that Bush hold someone accountable for failure, saying that's merely a distracting "blame game."
None of this should be a surprise. Bush has a long record of avoiding critics, rewarding loyalty even in the face of failure and shunning - even punishing - those who disagree with him. It's a management style that shapes how he governs - disdaining compromise with Democrats in Congress, for example - and one that brushes off whole sectors of the American electorate.
That could come back to haunt him, as is now evident in the two problems - Iraq and Katrina - that together have sent his approval ratings to the lowest levels of his presidency and threaten his second-term agenda.
His style of isolating himself from unwelcome voices pleases his core supporters, who don't want him to compromise, but it sacrifices the broader public appeal that helped Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton weather second-term setbacks. One new poll, from the independent Pew Research Center, suggests he is losing support even from Republicans and conservatives.
To Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., the Bush administration's response to Katrina suggested "a real sense of arrogance. Loyalty and never admitting a mistake matters more than the truth. It has a Nixon feel to me."
Analyst Andrew Sullivan, who writes an idiosyncratic but often conservative Weblog, thinks Katrina unmasked Bush's weakness as an executive.
"I must say that the Katrina response does help me better understand the situation in Iraq," Sullivan said. "The best bet is that the president doesn't actually know what's happening there, is cocooned from reality, has no one in his high-level staff able to tell him what's actually happening, and has created a culture of denial and loyalty that makes fixing mistakes or holding people accountable all but impossible."
Bush allies insist he is engaged and pressing the government to fix all hurricane-related problems. But the public isn't much impressed, judging by his plummeting polls. One new survey by independent pollster John Zogby shows Bush would lose a hypothetical election to every modern president, including the much-maligned Jimmy Carter.
Bush's isolated management style is one factor hurting him. While his decision-making is usually cloaked in secrecy, the hurricane crisis showed some characteristic traits.
Denial of unpleasant realities, for example. On Sept. 1 Bush contended that no one could have foreseen that New Orleans might be flooded: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
"Analyst Andrew Sullivan, who writes an idiosyncratic but often conservative Weblog..."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....pant pant wheeze....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Take your demonic poison darts and go home, you are a pitiful democrat.
He's had it in for Bush since 2000.
Oh please ANDY come up for air you making a*** out of yourself
OH PLEASE you know what Dubya probably watching coverage on Fox news or Weather Channel I think he get cable or Satellite TV at Crawford crib
According to a Google Search, Steve Thomma is Knight Ridder's Chief Political Correspondent and works in their Washington Bureau.
I never heard of him. Now I see why.
...and everyone knows it.
13% have bought into the "blame Bush" mantra of the left and the MSM...which really means only they are buying their own story, and not even all of them.
The real, glaring difficiency is found in lesson number five of THIS ARTCILE.
Bush did not visit with any angry evacuees in New Orleans.
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I did not have to read any further than this...
From over here in FReeper land Bush is ANYTHING but "isolated". He's Da Man.
No one ever anticipated terrorists would fly planes into buildings either. Great day they are truly in denial.
Everyone has shouted the levees would break - not a matter of if but when. I am terrified of another attack, I certainly do not feel safer.
What's the point of that?! To wipe the spittle from their chins?
Katrina underscorces MSMS's pathological hatred for Bush.
Just Andrew Sullivan throwing another hissy fit and stomping his feet. Nothing to see here, folks, move along now....
oh, what desperation. Is the left hungry for ANYTHING they can pin on President Bush? Yes.
Lastly, "President Bush, the "get-Involved-With-Every-Country" is now being called.. hmm.. an "isolationist".
The left is very, very worried - this article reeks of mucho anxiety. Uber anxiety. Tres anxiety. Panicked anxiety.
Knight Ridder...Didn't that used to be a major news organization?
This is a joke, right?
Has that poor fool been locked away without benefit of the net and FNC??
BWAAAAHAHAHA!!!!!
He and Sullivan have something in common, a shrillness that undercuts their ability to persuade. How do you ignore the fact that an inert, indecisive occured a key position in the chain of command, delaying and impeding execution of re;lief and rescue by at least 24hrs? Twenty-four critical hours. If Brown was a weak link, she was the one who broke the plan.
I think the media still doesn't realize that it's a 2-way street now. We read their filth AND ARE ABLE TO RESPOND TO IT.
But they keep on writing, just as we keep winning elections....
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