I agree that the President took responsibility for the immediate failures of FEMA and I respect him for that. It was good moment for him.
The problem now is that four days after the hurricane he said, as I recall, NOONE could have forseen the breaching of the levees. He didn't say, "I" did'not foresee it, or "I thought they might be topped, but not breached", or the real truth:
" the levee system has been a risk in New Orleans for generations. We had hoped with all our heart they would hold..and early word made it seem this was the case, but later proved not to be".
What he did was choose words that made it look like nothing his administration did or could have done regarding hurricane preparation or response would have made a difference because....NOONE anticipated the breach of the levees. Even the fact that the issue was not discussed in the immediate term, there were articles and simulations out there abou possible breaching in the event of a big hurricane.
Mr Bush may be getting a raw deal here because, as we all know, he is not particularly elequent and tends to use very simple broad statements that are all-encompassing instead of being more specific.
Mr. Bush is not a miracle worker. I don't think people expect him to be. But the attitude that Noone could foresee insurgency in IRAQ, no one could forsee airplanes crashing into buildings, no one could foresee the levees failing....it creates an image of lack of responsibility. Maybe responsibility is not deserved in a particular situation, but history can sort that out. When the President instead makes statements like the above, and it is then shown that he knew the risks..and maybe even the likliehood, it just hurts him. And we don't need to fall back on technical terms...or else he looks like Clinton, trying to parse what the meaning of "is" is. |
