Katrina, Incompetence, and the End of the Bush Era


E. J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post examines BushCo’s policy failures and how Americans are finally starting to see the light.

He starts:

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

While this “revelation” may be true to mainstream Media, most Americans seem to be thinking ahead looking at the recent results of polls. They show that the “tipping point” may have been reached in their support for the War in Iraq, domestic policies and Bush’s handling of terrorism.

Dionne points out:

The Bush Era did not begin when he took office, or even with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It began on Sept. 14, 2001, when Bush declared at the World Trade Center site: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Bush was, indeed, skilled in identifying enemies and rallying a nation already disposed to action. He failed to realize after Sept. 11 that it was not we who were lucky to have him as a leader, but he who was lucky to be president of a great country that understood the importance of standing together in the face of a grave foreign threat. Very nearly all of us rallied behind him….

…And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.

The failure to connect to the American people has been a long time coming for Bush. He narrowly escaped the 2000 election and only found footing after Sept. 11, 2001. Only then could his policies “stick,” in relation to the “War on Terror.” Dionne remarks that defining quality of the President was lost in the wake of Katrina:

And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.

I encourage folks to read on. Dionne ties plenty to the failed policies, including the stripping down of government to its lowest terms. “And if ever the phrase "reinventing government" had relevance, it is now that we have observed the performance of a government that allows political hacks to push aside the professionals.” And, not only will it affect Americans in the short and long term, but Bush himself will pay the price…


Along the same lines as Dionne, The Nation called out BushCo as The Disaster President

Except they are more blunt:

But the incompetence revealed by the response to the hurricane is deep-rooted, and can be traced to the twenty-five-year project, begun in the Reagan era, of discrediting government, "starving the beast" of resources and exalting private markets and faith-based charities. Tax cuts for the wealthy and Congressional corruption have drained government of the imagination and resources to address human needs. Katrina has brutally exposed Americans to the costs of this folly.

The reality of killing government, as the Nation points out is nothing new for Republicans. It is like a bad diet – they constantly hammer away at Democrats (and Americans, for that matter,) that government is way big and everything should be cut, cut, cut… Now we pay the price – not enough services to those in need and more pork to those who have none.

The Nation, like many, calls for an independent investigation into the failure of response to Hurricane Katrina’s destructive aftermath.

The disaster requires a thorough investigation into what went wrong, by an independent commission with subpoena power. It should also lead now-furious Americans to re-examine a generation of backward priorities. The debate about the role of government in the service of public good has been reopened. The hurricane revealed not only the desperate poverty of the region's African-American population but also the poverty of our federal policies. For too long our leaders have abandoned our cities, our poor, our public infrastructure. We need a government dedicated to serving the unemployed, the ill fed and the ill housed. It's time to end the dismantling and begin the rebuilding.

There is opportunity and optimism here. Americans deserve leadership that has the best interests of their people in mind. BushCo is not up to that task and must step aside for those, Democrat or Republican, to get to work. Otherwise, Bush will be removed and rendered to what Dionne noted, as “frustrating irrelevance.”