Dan Froomkin: Hurricane George
After two weeks of being battered for ignoring a drowning city in the wake of a hurricane, the Bush White House is trying to get back into the business it knows best: Making its own weather.
President Bush was famously on vacation when the disaster hit. He and his hurriedly reconstituted staff of political operatives floundered for a while, reflexively pursuing the time-honored White House strategy of admitting no mistakes -- and sticking to it, even after it was clear that the nation had seen those mistakes with its own eyes.
But now there's a new plan.
The first stage of the White House's strategy: Stop defending the indefensible.
So Bush yesterday, in an almost unprecedented move, took responsibility for the problematic response to Katrina -- at least "to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right."
That strained, vague, partial acknowledgement -- wedged into a brief appearance with the visiting Iraqi president -- was nevertheless enough to garner the White House "Bush Takes Blame" headlines everywhere this morning.
And that, the White House hopes, will be enough to start putting the controversy behind him.
Then it's on to the next stage: Trying to shift the nation's attention away from the past and toward a future in which Bush looks more like he did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That means reclaiming his mantle as a leader, championing the heroism of rescue workers, celebrating the compassion of the American people, and taking advantage of new opportunities to pursue conservative ideological goals.
With a nationally televised address from Louisiana on Thursday and a prayer service at the National Cathedral Friday morning, White House officials are hoping that their careful choreography and meticulously crafted scripts will give the media new imagery and a new story line to rival -- and hopefully even eclipse -- the horror of New Orleans.
Read entire article at Washington Post
President Bush was famously on vacation when the disaster hit. He and his hurriedly reconstituted staff of political operatives floundered for a while, reflexively pursuing the time-honored White House strategy of admitting no mistakes -- and sticking to it, even after it was clear that the nation had seen those mistakes with its own eyes.
But now there's a new plan.
The first stage of the White House's strategy: Stop defending the indefensible.
So Bush yesterday, in an almost unprecedented move, took responsibility for the problematic response to Katrina -- at least "to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right."
That strained, vague, partial acknowledgement -- wedged into a brief appearance with the visiting Iraqi president -- was nevertheless enough to garner the White House "Bush Takes Blame" headlines everywhere this morning.
And that, the White House hopes, will be enough to start putting the controversy behind him.
Then it's on to the next stage: Trying to shift the nation's attention away from the past and toward a future in which Bush looks more like he did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That means reclaiming his mantle as a leader, championing the heroism of rescue workers, celebrating the compassion of the American people, and taking advantage of new opportunities to pursue conservative ideological goals.
With a nationally televised address from Louisiana on Thursday and a prayer service at the National Cathedral Friday morning, White House officials are hoping that their careful choreography and meticulously crafted scripts will give the media new imagery and a new story line to rival -- and hopefully even eclipse -- the horror of New Orleans.