Katrina

Posted on 01/01/2009 at 4:14 pm by Bob Cesca

Paul Krugman takes a look back at two Air Force One photos of President Bush: one on 9/11 looking “presidential” and another one during Katrina in which he looked clueless and disconnected. Both photos are basically the same, though in the 9/11 photo he’s holding a telephone.

Krugman references a new Vanity Fair piece in which Bush advisers suggest that Katrina destroyed the administration.

While it’s true that Katrina body-slammed the establishment media out of its drowsy stupor, I think the administration was doomed by multiple Katrina-like blunders and scandals, including Abu Ghraib, no WMD, Mission Accomplished, FISA, Plamegate, various Republican corruption scandals — even Cheney shooting his buddy in the face.

Katrina, however, provided two pieces of photographic evidence which permanently stripped away any remaining post-9/11 facade of Bush competence and leadership. The Air Force One window photo was one, and I believe tthis was the other.

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  • GItheJOE

    I like this experiment. Can we can it the, “Bush Presidency Autopsy”. However, determining the cause of death is extremely difficult. If there is a gunshot wound(9/11), a stabbing wound(Iraq), clogged arteries in the heart(Katrina) and third degree burns all over the body(deregulated market crisis)how do we determine which one cause the death of this presidency?Again, I refer back to my original argument that stealing the 2000 election(obesity) was the death of this presidency along with a huge portion of the middle class and working poor.

  • http://nanotyrnns.blogspot.com/ Nanotyrannus

    In that pic of him reading while people are leaping from the World Trade Center — where the fuck is his American Flag Lapel Patriotism Ornament?Also, Dana Carvey once said of W that when he gets nervous or upset, his mouth somehow becomes smaller than anatomically possible.

  • http://nanotyrnns.blogspot.com/ Nanotyrannus

    Adding, I think the truth of the matter is that the Bush Administration killed the Bush Administration. From the beginning it was about 30 different shops all competing to get their own agenda implemented by an easy-to-control monkey. He was literally just a figurehead for a government run by many rogue elements. Half the time he had to hold press conferences assuring everyone that he had approved some unconstitutional behavior perpetrated by his White House and you know for a fact he only found out about the day before, or, at the very most, had not really understood what had been explained to him initially. He has no grasp of domestic policy, foreign policy, economics or military affairs, but he was more than willing to look right into the camera and pretend like he was fully in control. That total lack of willingness to actually be the president allowed his administration to run amok with conflicting agendas and fight constantly (no, Condi, those were not merely vigorous debates) and in the end achieve only the one common goal of robbing the treasury. They all thought they were smarter than the other guy and never for a moment believed that any of the bad ideas or mismanaged policies were their fault.9/11 didn’t kill the administration. Katrina didn’t kill the administration. Neither did Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, FISA, the emergency landing of that Orion in China (remember that? nobody does and it was one of the first indications that they had no diplomatic skills whatsoever), Blackwater’s shenanigans, bin Laden getting away, bad diplomacy, or a hundred other thngs.This administration was dead on arrival. Life As We All Know It happened and this bunch couldn’t hack it and never could have. They were in over their heads from the very beginning.

  • http://politicalpartypooper.wordpress.com/ Political Party Pooper

    Katrina was doom for Bush, no doubt. 9/11 was not. I know the book reading thing looks silly, but i once knew a fellow who, the moment he knew of trouble, would take off running in a panic like a chicken with its head cut off, causing everyone around him to panic…without knowing why there was reason to panic, or what to do about anything. Clearly, that kind of reaction is the wrong kind.I don’t know if continuing to read the book was the right move or not. I don’t know what difference it made, since our nation already has a “panic” button, and every military agency knows exactly what to do in those moments, based on the threat level.If I’m President at that moment, I sure as hell don’t go running, or even walking quickly from that room with a shocked look on my face.As for Katrina, total clusterfuck, guaranteed to have happened exactly that way for decades prior. The responses from Bush were as silly as you claim, but no words I know of could have solved the ineptitude of the various government arms that week.We needed action regarding Katrina long before Katrina ever hit. But, sometimes that’s the way our nation reacts. We only scream about trouble when it’s too late. Scientists had been warning about New Orleans for years. No one listened.Here we are, rebuilding the place. Maybe that’s compassionate, maybe it’s taking into account that people’s homes are where their hearts are, but it might also end up being very, very stupid.

  • http://willpen.wordpress.com willpen

    Nanotyrannus,I could not agree with you more, on both comments. A person’s face says so much about who they are and I have personally never been able to look at this man with any comfort in my soul since 2000.As a matter of fact, at this point in time, the look that I see on his face is one of complete and utter panic and having to actually attempt to make the pretense that he is actually a man that CAN think.Is it January 20th yet?

  • http://www.osborneink.com Matt Osborne

    GI: “post-mortem.” We need a Post-Mortem of the Bush years. Treat them as a dead body for dissection, taking samples for the pathology labs.