Who does Bush think he's fooling?
Long fooled by the Bush image machine, most Americans now understand that this Administration can only deliver spin, not substance; photo ops, not action.
Great article here --> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050926/scheer0913
[Excerpt below...]
There's never a terrorist around when you need one. Even a couple of suspicious-looking foreigners playing soccer near the Superdome as Katrina began to make landfall might have done the trick to get this easily distracted President focused. The war on terror is, after all, George W. Bush's obsession, obliterating any other consideration of the nation's well-being.
...
During the Clinton years, FEMA was turned into a model of efficiency, as demonstrated after the Northridge earthquake and the Oklahoma City bombing. How bizarre, then, that in the wake of 9/11, the Administration handicapped FEMA...
Unfortunately, what the Bush White House is good at when it comes to national security is providing flash over substance, as Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana found out the hard way. After riding in a helicopter with the President and seeing machinery apparently working on the breached 17th Street levee, she was shocked the next day to find the work mysteriously stopped. "Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment," said the senator in a press release.
For far too long, this kind of shenanigan worked well for Bush, allowing him to narrowly win a second term. His Administration was asleep at the switch on 9/11 even though "the system was blinking red," according to the then-CIA chief. Bush grabbed a bullhorn at ground zero and remade himself as a "war president"
...
But, as one of this nation's greatest war Presidents said, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. With the Iraq war grinding on with no end in sight and the postmortems of the Katrina debacle showing the White House and Homeland Security Department to have been as confused and inept as FEMA itself, Bush's support in several national polls has continued a steady plunge to below 40%.
...
Great article here --> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050926/scheer0913
[Excerpt below...]
There's never a terrorist around when you need one. Even a couple of suspicious-looking foreigners playing soccer near the Superdome as Katrina began to make landfall might have done the trick to get this easily distracted President focused. The war on terror is, after all, George W. Bush's obsession, obliterating any other consideration of the nation's well-being.
...
During the Clinton years, FEMA was turned into a model of efficiency, as demonstrated after the Northridge earthquake and the Oklahoma City bombing. How bizarre, then, that in the wake of 9/11, the Administration handicapped FEMA...
Unfortunately, what the Bush White House is good at when it comes to national security is providing flash over substance, as Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana found out the hard way. After riding in a helicopter with the President and seeing machinery apparently working on the breached 17th Street levee, she was shocked the next day to find the work mysteriously stopped. "Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment," said the senator in a press release.
For far too long, this kind of shenanigan worked well for Bush, allowing him to narrowly win a second term. His Administration was asleep at the switch on 9/11 even though "the system was blinking red," according to the then-CIA chief. Bush grabbed a bullhorn at ground zero and remade himself as a "war president"
...
But, as one of this nation's greatest war Presidents said, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. With the Iraq war grinding on with no end in sight and the postmortems of the Katrina debacle showing the White House and Homeland Security Department to have been as confused and inept as FEMA itself, Bush's support in several national polls has continued a steady plunge to below 40%.
...