Ex-Aides Say Bush Never Recovered from Katrina

Ex-Aides quoted by Vanity Fair via Associated Press via Yahoo News ^ | 11/29/08

[marshmallow]

WASHINGTON – Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government's poor handling of the natural disaster.

"Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. P.R.? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: "Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin."

Their comments are a part of an oral history of the Bush White House that Vanity Fair magazine compiled for its February issue, which hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and nationally on Jan. 6. Vanity Fair published comments by current and former government officials, foreign ministers, campaign strategists and numerous others on topics that included Iraq, the anthrax attacks, the economy and immigration.

Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that as a new president, Bush was like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee whom critics said lacked knowledge about foreign affairs. When Bush first came into office, he was surrounded by experienced advisers like Vice President Dick Cheney and Powell, who Wilkerson said ended up playing damage control for the president.

"It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president — because, let's face it, that's what he was — was going to be protected....

[combat_boots]

George Bush warned both Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco that they ought to evacuate people in the path of the storm DAYS before those two idiots finally decided maybe they ought to listen.

The insane re-writing of history by the Democrats and the MSM ever since has been beyond disgraceful.

This was emphatically NOT “Bush’s Fault,” but the fault of two Louisiana Democrat leaders, just as the mortgage meltdown ia almost exclusively a Democrat debacle.

The spin over the past four years has been unprecedentedly vile.

[eyedigress]

I respect your vivid description of Camille. Martial Law was very close to being imposed after Elana. The Military did traffic control and clean-up for Biloxi, Pass Christian and Gulfport. Bush couldn’t stop Katrina and because N.O. is mostly poor and black the agenda is on. It hasn’t stopped.