BUSH’s REAL JOB: ‘CONVEY A POSITIVE IMAGE’ ©
07 September 2005 12:03 am by Taylor Marsh
BUSH’s REAL JOB: "CONVEY A POSITIVE IMAGE"
©
…and Katrina makes Bill Kristol crack
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after
working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and
women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States
by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed
as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations
officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate
fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. … Firefighters say they want to
brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes
and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet
to receive emergency aid. But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters
in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed
for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside
President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
Frustrated:
Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
A few quickies for this very early a.m., some of the best of yesterday.
The above article comes from Josh
Marshall.
And it leads nicely into…
The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after
Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to
dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them
two days to arrive, according to internal documents. Michael Brown, director
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland
Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall
on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey
a positive image" about the government’s response for victims.
FEMA
Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit
It’s the Bush administration’s bottom line: convey a positive
image.
As long as you act like things are all right, they’re all right.
Right?
Right up until the time you have to execute and you can’t, don’t,
aren’t capable of executing, which brings me to this beauty, straight from the
mouth of a Bushie.
William Kristol, editor of the
Weekly Standard … told The Washington Post, "Almost every
Republican I have spoken with is disappointed" in Bush’s response to the
disaster. "He is a strong president…but he has never really focused on
the importance of good execution. I think that is true in many parts of his
presidency." David
Corn
Huh?
He’s a good president, but he can’t execute?
Um, well, I just don’t know what to say to that.
Is it that Bush looks the part that makes him a "good president"?
Or is it that Republicans have a fetish for faux leaders in fighter jock costumes?
It sure isn’t because he knows what he’s doing; just pick a topic,
any topic. Oh, right, it’s because he can portray "a positive image."
I almost forgot.
Of course, it would really help if Bush had people on the job
who knew what they were doing, instead of people like "Brownie."
Who appointed these people anyway?
It sure as hell wasn’t Governor Blanco or Mayor Nagin.
