Bush Takes Responsibility

WaPo reported President Bush yesterday said he takes personal responsibility for the federal government's stumbling response to Hurricane Katrina

It was right for Bush to take responsibility for the Federal Government's part of the which is about 10% of the problem. The other 90% is split 60% for the governor, who insisted on maintaining total control over something she was unable to do anything about, and 30% for the Mayor, who has admited responsibility, although I have not seen the MSM report it.

, as his White House worked on several fronts to move beyond the improvisation of the first days of the crisis and set a long-term course on a problem that aides now believe will shadow the balance of Bush's second term. "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at a White House news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

Don Surber blogged That is the way it should be. Presidents should take responsibility for the actions -- or, in this case, inactions -- of their administrations. His speech on Thursday should be enlightening. Equally enlightening will be the left's reaction. The political pendulum could swing back their way, provided they give some scintilla of an appearance of putting the national interest ahead of personal ambition. We shall see.

Danny Carlton blogged Bill Clinton did the same thing with Waco. Did it mean anything then? Absolutely not. Saying you take responsibility is an old trick to get people to shut up. In this case the problem is the vast majority of the blame falls on the shoulders of the local mayors and governors who ran from their duty, held the recovery hostage to their power games and turned the whole mess into a finger pointing party that's helped no one. The White House and FEMA were doing their job, but were hamstrung but incompetent Democrat politicians on the local level which demanded illegal control of Federal resources before they would cooperate, if they even bothered to notify the Federal government. Bush's “admission” is nothing more than a “shut up so we can help people” ploy. Well meaning though it may be, it nonetheless legitimizes a dishonest tactic, and allows the Liberals a victory (more Pyrrhic than not) when they should have been roundly condemned for politicizing the suffering of millions of people.

Scared Monkeys blogged With all the finger pointing by the Mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of Louisiana and Democrats abound, President George W. Bush took full and complete responsibility for the failures of the response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

PoliticalTeen blogged I do think that Bush does hold some responsibility on the speediness of Katrina relief. However the question is how much does he have? The answer is not as much as Gov. Kathleen Blanco (who refuses to apologize) and Ray Nagin (who has apologized)

JunkYardBlog blogged He's not taking responsibility for leaving all those buses to flood, and he's not taking responsibility for NOLA's complete meltdown at all levels. Those things weren't his fault, so why should he take the blame for them? But expect the media to swallow the qualifier and present the President in virtual chains, proclaiming mea culpa for all disaster relief failures since the beginning of time. Pompeii? Bush says it's his fault. Atlantis? Yup--Bush took the hit for that one too.

I also see from JunkYardBlog that there is now a Impeach Kathleen Blanco blog. I wish them well