According to this morning’s New York Times:

Mr. Bush expressed alarm after his return to Washington from the Gulf Coast.

Any sane American citizen with a pulse would simply assume this Presidential “alarm” concerned the hideous privation of Katrina survivors and the massive scale of death and destruction across a three state area.
Right?
Think again.
This morning we are given yet another reason to believe our sham of a leader isn’t wired to think with the normal compassion of an ordinary American.
According to a very matter-of-fact article by Adam Nagourney and Anne Kornblut, the President of the United States’ first priority “this weekend” was “a plan…to contain the political damage from the administration's response” lead by “Bush's two senior political advisers”, the warm and huggable Karl Rove and the President’s goon-in-chief Dan Bartlett.
This rapidly assembled plan to restore a vacation-fresh 43 to his Photo-Opp’ed glory:

-Orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region…

-Directed administration officials not to respond to attacks…on the relief efforts…

-Sought to move the blame for the slow response to…state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

According to the Times’ third paragraph, the “political damage” plan was begun “late late last week” without the President’s involvement “after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane”:

His first visit, on Friday, left some Republicans cringing.

The curious and, of late, schizophrenic Times, from the tenor of the eye-raising article, appears to consider this disgraceful and unseemly PR action plan at par for the Rove-designed Bush course:

The unfolding public relations campaign reflects the style Mr. Rove has brought to the political campaigns…Rove had told administration officials not to respond to…attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the hurricane…[as] the president was in a weak moment and that the administration should not appear to be…blatantly political…In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats…That line of argument was echoed throughout the day [Sunday], in harsher language, by Republicans reflecting the White House line.

This egregious and demonically calculated PR plan is shocking and another new low for an already bottom-slimed, shame-ladened Presidency.
One cannot really blame the Bush henchmen for, again, resorting to the only dirty tool in their kit to aid in the image-burnishing restoration of what John at AmericaBlog described as our nation’s figurehead Queen.
Chicanery has been the Bushies weapon of first, middle and last resort since 2000 and no thinking person should be surprised that these mediocre men, even in the face of this historic human tragedy, again return to their true natures.
Be forewarned, though, these political rats have been, through their own negligence, backed into a rather tight corner and will now conduct this evolving, dirty rapid response PR plan with unprecedented ferocity as over a million people still struggle for basic life-sustaining necessities and untold thousands still float dead in sewage-contaminated waters.

Photo: Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 10:46 AM