Posted on 09/17/2005 10:39:20 AM PDT by new yorker 77
As he did yet again in Thursday's fireside chat with a country mired in rancor and angst, George W. Bush demonstrated the remarkably adept ability to rise to the moment. Just as his critics are pronouncing him poll-dead and his second term an abject failure, he does two things that mark him as a leader destined to join the ranks of America's greatest presidents.
In important speeches, like the president's compassionate reassurance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina that their lives will be put back together and their communities rebuilt, Bush's rhetoric connects. It attaches the urgency of the moment, inspiring confidence and trust.
The second indication of his ability to lead, and a trait that so befuddles his adversaries, is that he rebounds from pronouncements of his certain demise to reassert his vision and his agenda.
Hurricane Katrina's devastation is a perfect example. Unfairly, but predictably, Bush took the brunt of the criticism, becoming the whipping boy for the failings of state and local officials to either execute the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan or to make timely decisions under pressure.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco acknowledged as much this week, confiding to an aide, "I really should have called for the military." Had she called out the National Guard, or invited the president to send troops earlier, much of the looting, violence and misery could have been avoided.
Near unanimously, however, commentators, reporter/commentators reacting to what they were seeing and partisans blamed Bush, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of it was genuine frustration. Some was more sinister, an effort to destroy one of the premises of Bush's conservative governance — that it is competent.
Establish that Bush is incompetent here and the premise of homeland security and the Bush foreign policy, especially Iraq, become easier to attack. And, ultimately, the entire Bush legacy, lessening the chance that his initiatives will be durable.
In his speech, Bush expressed his empathy for the victims and promised them that their government will help reunite their families and restore their lives and communities. It's a big-ticket expenditure — a staggering $200 billion is the estimate — that reflects conservatism at its most compassionate and generous.
But the president is not promising to rebuild New Orleans as it was, a violence-prone city with a sizable population deep into generational dependency, with little or no stake in tomorrow. The debate will rage between liberals and conservatives as to whether the reality the nation saw on TV is the result of too little or too much welfare state expansion over the past 40 years. Bush wisely avoids that.
Instead, he announced a series of initiatives that continue the approach embodied in No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug bill: more spending, often substantially more, but with real incentives to change behaviors.
Two examples are job training and home ownership. Bringing the evacuees back into public housing would continue cultivating the behaviors that rendered them passive and dependent on buses never dispatched and government too overwhelmed in crisis to protect them.
Bush promised an urban homesteading initiative, with sweat equity and favorable mortgages. He vowed, too, to give businesses incentives to create jobs and individuals up to $5,000 to buy training and services, such as child care and transportation, that they'll need to gain the skills to qualify for those jobs.
Faith-based organizations will be given incentives, too, to pitch in. As we saw in the evacuation, the caring and guidance expressed through religious institutions and faith-based organizations put a face, and a tenderness, on help extended that no government can.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast become, in effect, a laboratory for conservatives to experiment on a grand scale, starting with a relatively clean slate, to see whether ownership and opportunity incentives can change the behaviors that keep people in poverty.
It's a grand vision and a bold agenda.
What happened here? Yesterday the critics were arranging the Failed Second Term funeral procession. Today the corpse, declining to accept political demise, is driving the procession to the destination of his choosing. And brother, it ain't the graveyard.
— Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
God bless this great man.
He needs to keep it up
Can you imagine being a soldier and having Blanco or Nagin as one of your officers in the heat of battle? Many SE Asians can't imagine it either.
Great article PING
Tom Daschle is deeply saddened.
And so is Henry Reid.
Been saying right here for years.
been saying it right for years.
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.
How does this guy manage to keep his job at The Atlanta Journal-Constipation?
Corrupt Mary Landrieu still wants to punch President Bush in the face. It's good to be a Landrieu in Lousiana. They are the dominant political family there who have replaced the Longs. Rotten to the core.
I read your report. Very good - and thank you.
The SF Chronicle had a very positive report about Bush today. The NYT jumped sided with Bush and not his detractors yesterday. What is going on?
Come 2009, it will be Former Senator Mary Landrieu.
I agree. I've been saying it for years too.
Great minds think alike!!
GO "W" GO!!
To Jim Wooten, I say: BRAVO!! Well said!!
Many Asian societies revere integrity and dignity in a leader. Something Bush has shown and Blanco and Nagin have not. Blanco's crying and Nagin's foul-mouthed tirade really shook a lot of people up over here.
(sigh)
I just wish 'Bush's vision' included a smaller, less nanny-prone government.
Bush is not "rebounding" at all. He is remaining steadfast in his convictions, and static in his persona. There is the Bush who the media succeeds in painting through lies which subsequently get refuted by events, and, when given face time, the real Bush emerges unchanged and unchanging.
The Bush the media creates is an illusion.
Great editorial ..GO W!
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