We keep hearing from politicians on both sides of the aisle that now is not the time to point fingers and play the blame game. OK then, in the spirit of civility, and playing nice, I won't. I'll just pass along some information from some of our major news outlets from the past few days.
Newsweek has a
big article about Katrina. Here are a couple of quotes.
...Air Force One dipped below the clouds on Tuesday so the president could peer out the window down at the disaster ...
Actually, that was Wednesday. Oops, just a simple mistake, could happen to anybody. It's not like Newsweek is a big national news magazine with proofreaders and all. The truth is this: the White House website shows this is what the president was doing, on Tuesday, out in California.
More from Newsweek:
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco seemed uncertain and sluggish, hesitant to declare martial law or a state of emergency,
Actually, Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency on Friday, three days before the storm hit. Oops again! Good thing Newsweek doesn't have a big circulation, it would be awful if people were misinformed about the facts.
In its Sunday edition,The Washington Post reported:
As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.
Hmmm...a senior Bush official got the date of Governor Blanco's declaration wrong as well. In fact, saying "as of Saturday," kind of makes it sound as if they're still waiting for her to declare a state of emergency. The Post has since issued a correction. Newsweek has not. I wonder if Newsweek got its information from that same senior Bush official. I wonder who that official was?
On Monday, the New York Times reported:
Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
It ... sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.
The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett.
I invite you to draw your own conclusions about who is playing the blame game and why.