MUST READ: How Bush Blew It - Newsweek Sept 19th issue

[nonconformist]

Excellent article, just excellent. You really must read the entire thing. Gives a great deal of information on what was going on behind-the-scenes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/

How Bush Blew It

Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe.

By Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

<snip>

[Qibing Zero]

1. What I've been saying from day one:

"How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace."

[Kagemusha]

2. Because he doesn't want to be aware?

They don't like stating the obvious in the media.

[mtnester]

8. Even worse . . he had to be CONVINCED to return from vacation early

that, in of itself, is the telling point of it all.

[nonconformist]

12. He has created an environment where his aides are more

concerned with "pissing him off" than keeping him informed.

[RevCheesehead]

3. Shouldn't he have a therapist rather than a counselor?

I'm just sayin'.

[sam sarrha]

7. Click on the "Blue" link in my signature....Dry Drunk Syndrome, if you

want a good insight into who he is just do a search and type in

'Renanna Brooks and bush' she does psychological profiles on politicians. she gets into the structure of his language being that of a wife abuser.. how he uses 'Hollow' language to manipulate people

search out 'Katherine van Wormer' who is an expert on Alcohol addiction and behavior.. my link in the signature is one of her articles.

[Digit]

I'm just an American Citizen with no family ties to the Gulf Coast....

...but I cared enough to pay attention to what was going on.

It is this "detachment" that is so telling about him.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Already on Greatest page

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x155705

[nonconformist]

14. No wonder I missed it - that one was posted in Editorials. nt

[Hekate]

5. Good beginning -- dig deeper, MSM

Guess I'll have to go out and buy this issue of Newsweek.

Hekate

#Why won't the Chickenhawk cross the road?#
#Why isn't the Chickenhawk waitin' on the levee?#

[hwmnbn]

6. excellent article......

Some of the details of intergovernmental communications during Katrina exposed.

"Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as 'strangely surreal and almost detached.' ..... Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat."

* is portrayed as a spoiled punk who doesn't grasp the severity of the situation.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. This is so damning. It shows how detached this man is from reality.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

[nonconformist]

11. Makes you wonder what the hell he does all day

And what his briefings consist of.

[me b zola]

16. The sickest thing about that excerpt

IMO, they were not trying to convince him that there was widespread suffering and that people were dying as a result of his inaction, but rather that he was being hurt politically by failing to pretend to care.

Anyway, that is just what my gut says. I swear I can hear him say "fuck those people".

[etherealtruth]

10. The chimp has is an unfortunate combination of ...

... stupidity, elitism and indifference to the plight of others; it would be sad except that he has so damaged our country.

[Postman]

13. The "bad news"- your vacation's over not the dead and desperate in NOLA...

These cretins are f**king sick...

No wonder Iraq's a f**kstory.

[BlueStatesForever]

15. My commentary on the Bush Blew It article

From Newsweek:

"It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. "



Hmm, a person surrounded by "yes-people" who can't stand criticism or bad news. Does this bubble-boy description remind you of anyone we know?



"I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm really, really bad".