In 2004 George Bush framed the issue of whether America should repair the damage his first term did to our international prestige — of whether we should try to recover the sixty years of diplomatic capital the Bush administration squandered in just four years — by saying we didn't need a
permission slip to defend ourselves. It was one of those rhetorical dirty tricks that Karl Rove's GOP delights in, insinuating that anyone who let
legal technicalities stop him, anyone who stopped to
consult or
ask permission when bold, direct
action was called for — well, that person just wasn't manly enough to lead.
But when it was time to rescue the thousands of Americans who are slowly dying in New Orleans, Bush's excuse for five days of inaction is that he didn't have a permission slip from state and local authorities.
Several other diaries have documented the Bush Administration's concerted effort — led by Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett, according to the Times — to pass the buck and shift blame away from the President. The right-wing extremists have never met a national crisis they couldn't politicize, and Hurricane Katrina is no exception — instead of doing what any of us would do and
firing FEMA's Michael Brown on the spot, Bush is praising him for a job well done… and instead of addressing the criminal incompetence that led to untold thousands of deaths, the GOP is putting sandbags around the White House.
I can't say that a President John Kerry, eight months into his first term, would have had enough time to restore FEMA to the level of competence and efficiency it had before Bush took office. But I can say this: Kerry wouldn't have waited for a permission slip before sending the cavalry to New Orleans. He wouldn't have spent the month of August on vacation. He wouldn't have left Joe Allbaugh's roommate in charge of coordinating our response to a national emergency. And his White House would spend more time trying to fix the problem than it did trying to fix the blame.