Hell Slushes Over

I've been wondering what would happen first--President Bush admitting to a failing, or my completing my first Sudoku puzzle. And to my eternal humiliation, George beat me to it. Yesterday in an impromptu moment he admitted to actual cameras that the sorry Federal reaction to the Katrina disaster had to be laid, ultimately, at his feet. And this came even after it seemed he might defer enough blame to Michael Brown's incompetence to avoid the spotlight of (ir)responsibility.

It seems that, aside from family members (with strident commentary from Laura and Barbara the Elder), no Republicans could find a successful way to spin the situation. The Rovists first attempted their usual slick Orwellian sloganeering my pasting all criticisms with the derogatory "blame game" label, which was partially successful because the word "game" served to trivialize the criticism. But the endless news accounts and horrific odors emanating from the levee breaches could not be hidden from the media outlets as have the returningcoffins of the nearly 2000 sacrificial American victims of the Iraqi war. And the commentators, at the risk of seeming callous to the suffering, have self-righteously called those responsible to task.

Okay, Michael Brown was an easy target, a true buffoon who got his job because of Bush's back-slapping cronyism. That could have worked had he been sent off as ambassador to Swaziland, but not as administrator of such an important agency as FEMA, for which he had no suitable experience. But one of the truest tests of a chief executive, especially one who believes in the CEO model of delegation, is the quality of his appointments. That was the Achilles heel in Bush the Elder's administration (re: Dan Quayle and Clarence Thomas). Perhaps George the Younger thought that by subsuming FEMA into the great Department of Homeland Security, a strong FEMA head was less vital. Well, here were a few major miscalculations. The Department of Homeland Security has shown itself to be a morass of bureaucratic miscommunication, and FEMA has become enfeebled. I remember how well FEMA rose to the occasion after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. Now I do not trust it to piss on the fires after the San Andreas blows its gasket. And members of the 9/11 commission have had equally unflattering things to say about the Homeland Security folks.

Good work, so far, George. The ironic thing is that by his admitting to a certain reality, his poll numbers, which had been sinking lower than the deluged bayous of Louisiana, will likely spurt upward. His opacity regarding the Iraqi mess will continue on, however, as his cognitive dissonance will override any concerns that the growing insurgency (160 killed in Baghdad today alone) is more than a mild irritant that Faith and Fortitude will easily overcome.

The more I see Bush trying to extemporize, the more he seems, flailing in his inarticulate way, to resemble the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, down to the brain made of straw--except that George can't sing or dance. Welcome to your Second Term, Mr. Bush. You couldn't bullhorn your way into public acceptance after Katrina as you did in lower Manhattan, and now you have an unsuccessful military adventure, a natural catastrophe and stratospheric gasoline prices to try to rationalize to your public. And it'll get even more interesting if (or when) the bird flu transmutes into a murderous humanly transmitted virus, or when the San Andreas cracks, or when the inevitable second big strike of Al Qaeda decimates some urban center.

Actually, unlike the Scarecrow, Bush needs more than a brain--he could use a heart and some courage as well. And of course, a lot of the luck that has put him in his current executive position. But I, as a gambler, know that luck has a way of running out.