Slate.com has an intresting article about the recent video tape that shows the president being briefed about Katrina. This is a line that cracked me up:
You know you're in trouble when Michael Brown outshines you.
Ouch... Read, enjoy, and try not cry for our country.
Bush has long been criticized for being incurious. That isn't always a bad thing. A president can be uninterested in visiting the Taj Mahal if he's laserlike behind the scenes. Perhaps the Katrina briefing was an aberration. But I worry that it isn't. Those in the room with him during other briefings also say he didn't ask very sharp questions then, either. Former anti-terrorism official Richard Clarke and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill both wrote about Bush's lack of curiosity. L. Paul Bremer's account of his 14 months in Iraq as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority inadvertently paints a similar picture. In briefings, Bush offered a pep talk—"pace yourself, Jerry"—and questions about tangential issues like whether the new Iraqi leaders would thank the Americans for their sacrifice. George Packer didn't work for Bush, but his book The Assassin's Gate paints a grim portrait of what happens when the president doesn't ask the right questions: Factions within his administration take over and pursue their own agendas.
How many films will be made about this Bush guy?
I read that there are several Katrina pictures in the works. Some that will document small stories of the Ninth Ward and others that will document the governmental ball dropping.
We should look forward (or not) to seeing this story played out from just about every angle imaginable. We should weep for America like the freedom eagle because 55 million Americans voted for this asshole. The only this that makes me smile a little is that 49 million didn't.