Text 14953, 110 rader
Skriven 2005-09-06 05:53:38 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
Ärende: Worthless bastards
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Fixing blame is what Bush the Bungler does.

From the NY Times:

September 5, 2005
White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior
political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to
contain the political damage from the administration's response to
Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an
extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed
administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the
relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to
Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White
House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl
Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last
week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to
register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the
hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

As a result, Americans watching television coverage of the disaster this
weekend began to see, amid the destruction and suffering, some of the most
prominent members of the administration - Richard B. Myers, the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense;
and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state - touring storm-damaged
communities.

Mr. Bush is to return to Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday; his first
visit, on Friday, left some Republicans cringing, in part because the
president had little contact with residents left homeless.

Republicans said the administration's effort to stanch the damage had been
helped by the fact that convoys of troops and supplies had begun to arrive
by the time the administration officials turned up. All of those
developments were covered closely on television.

In many ways, the unfolding public relations campaign reflects the style
Mr. Rove has brought to the political campaigns he has run for Mr. Bush.
For example, administration officials who went on television on Sunday were
instructed to avoid getting drawn into exchanges about the problems of the
past week, and to turn the discussion to what the government is doing now.

"We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time
right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are," Michael
Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on "Meet the Press" on
NBC.

One Republican with knowledge of the effort said that Mr. Rove had told
administration officials not to respond to Democratic attacks on Mr. Bush's
handling of the hurricane in the belief that the president was in a weak
moment and that the administration should not appear to be seen now as
being blatantly political. As with others in the party, this Republican
would discuss the deliberations only on condition of anonymity because of
keen White House sensitivity about how the administration and its strategy
would be perceived.

In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough
political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away
from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who,
as it happens, are Democrats.

"The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility
and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and
local officials," Mr. Chertoff said in his television interview. "The
federal government comes in and supports those officials."

That line of argument was echoed throughout the day, in harsher language,
by Republicans reflecting the White House line.

In interviews, these Republicans said that the normally nimble White House
political operation had fallen short in part because the president and his
aides were scattered outside Washington on vacation, leaving no one
obviously in charge at a time of great disruption. Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush
were in Texas, while Vice President Dick Cheney was at his Wyoming ranch.

Mr. Bush's communications director, Nicolle Devenish, was married this
weekend in Greece, and a number of Mr. Bush's political advisers -
including Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman -
attended the wedding.

Ms. Rice did not return to Washington until Thursday, after she was spotted
at a Broadway show and shopping for shoes, an image that Republicans said
buttressed the notion of a White House unconcerned with tragedy.

These officials said that Mr. Bush and his political aides rapidly changed
course in what they acknowledged was a belated realization of the
situation's political ramifications. As is common when this White House
confronts a serious problem, management was quickly taken over by Mr. Rove
and a group of associates including Mr. Bartlett. Neither man responded to
requests for comment.

White House advisers said that Mr. Bush expressed alarm after his return to
Washington from the Gulf Coast.

One senior White House official said that Mr. Bush appeared at a senior
staff meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and called the results on the
ground "unacceptable." At the encouragement of Mr. Bartlett, officials
said, he repeated the comment later in the Rose Garden, the start of this
campaign

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It's all PR to these clowns.
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