Listen… It’s sound is carried by the wind, wafting through conversations wherever people gather, surging through the blogosphere, and erupting onto the pages of major newspapers. It’s even glanced across the surface of our corporate controlled TV news shows. Like the levees bursting from the mounting pressure of Lake Pontchartrain, the teflon coating that has protected the Bush Administration from the consequences of everything from ignoring the terrorist threat before 9/11 to its violent quest for mythical WMD, is cracking apart.
We are witnessing a massive, collective shift in awareness. These things do not happen over night, but as a cumulative process. The bad news for this President has gathered momentum over a politically disastrous summer. It may too early to tell if the storm headed Bush’s way is full category 5, but it’s clear that the hundredth monkey has noticed that Bush is an ineffectual and detached leader, unprepared for the “hard work” of dealing with reality.
A casual reading of some of the major press organs tells me that the dam has truly burst for Bush and even his titanium reinforced bubble won’t protect him.
— scathing media commentary below the fold —
From the New York Times:
Waiting for a Leader
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration…
Over at CNN Jack Cafferty exhibited another Bush-bashing verbal tick:
Cafferty: Where’s President Bush? Is he still on vacation?
Blitzer: He’s cut short his vacation he’s coming back to Washington tomorrow.
Cafferty: Oh, that would be a good idea. He was out in San Diego I think at a Naval air station giving a speech on Japan and the war in Iraq today. Based on his approval rating, based on the latest polls, my guess is getting back to work might not be a terrible idea.
The Bush endorsing Union Leader had this to say:
Bush and Katrina:
A time for action, not aloofnessAS THE EXTENT of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation became clearer on Tuesday — millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews can’t reach some regions — President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before….
The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.
Conservative Chicago Sun Times columnist Micheal Sneed raises a point:
Watch for a public uproar when statistics show how many impoverished citizens of New Orleans were killed by Hurricane Katrina because they couldn’t afford to flee.
Quoth a top Sneed source who has lived in Cuba on and off for 20 years, and who asked to remain anonymous: “I detest Fidel Castro, but I will tell you this. When a hurricane is approaching Cuba, Castro has set up a system to bus everybody out of harm’s way before disaster hits.
This is just a smattering of the initial reactions to Bush’s leadership, and the water has not, yet receded to show the full scope of this disaster. But as Howard Fineman points out, Bush is returning early from his vacation to face far more than the turning tide of Hurricane Katrina.
We have journalist Malcolm Gladwell to thank for the idea that every social phenomenon has a dramatic “tipping point.” It doesn’t always work that way. And yet Hurricane Katrina is just such a moment. We are a big, strong country — and New Orleans will, somehow, survive — but you do get the sense, as President Bush finally arrived here after a month-long vacation, that a political hurricane is gathering force, and it’s going to hit the capital any day….
Andy Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans. Will George Bush? His poll numbers already at near-record low levels, he will have to oversee the rescue of the Gulf in the midst of a changing climate in Washington. The public’s sense of where America is headed — the “right direction/wrong track” numbers — are dismal. Gas prices are high and unsettling. Congressional Democrats, reluctant since 9/11 to take on a “war president,” finally have decided to do so. And Republicans, knowing that they’ll be facing the voters a year from now, are beginning to seek ways to distance themselves from him.
Chris Floyd suggests that Bush will return to Washington to face a perfect storm. I agree. This “wartime President” will face criticism, this time, with no “enemy” to scapegoat. He’ll have no “with us or against us,” Manichean rhetoric, with which to gird himself. He is about to face the most difficult battle of his presidency, and learn as many have, that you can’t fight Mother Nature.
