The President’s New Orleans Speech
Quick reactions before I taint my initial impressions with those of other bloggers and columnists:
I didn’t care for the rhetorical bits, and I’m somewhat disappointed that presidential speech writers think they have to always include these little ’speechifying’ intros. Once he got into the substance, though, I think it was a pretty good speech. The proposals are comprehensive, he hit the right tones on entrepreneurship, home ownership, and addressing the pockets of poverty, he took on the race issue and the class issue, and, importantly, he made it clear that the federal response was not adequate, and that the responsibility is his.
In other words, he did just about everything that his opponents claim he is uncapable of or unwilling to do. I do think he buried the headline; it would have made for a more dramatic speech if : (1) the rhetorical phoney baloney speechwriter stuff was thrown out of the intro and (2) the ‘I take full responsibility’ stuff replaced it at the front end, followed closely by (3) here’s what I’m gonna do about it.
The liberals won’t like it; they’ll say too little, too late. That’s fine; they’ve played partisan gamesmanship with this disaster from day one. Clearly, though, the damage has been done, the approval ratings have bottomed out, and, unless (God forbid) there’s some other piece of bad news we have to deal with, the combination of this speech, the reconstruction efforts, the Iraqi constitutional election, the confirmation of Roberts, the announcement of O’Connor’s replacement, and the trial of Saddam will all combine to move the President back to his normal range: about the high 40’s, and that’s as good as we can expect for the remainder of his term.
UPDATE 9:20 p.m. central: Lorie Byrd is moved to say “Hell Yes” by the reaction of people in the Superdome to Bush’s speech…
Only indirectly related to the speech, but related to Decision ‘08 — Gov. Haley Barbour appeared on FoxNews to comment afterward (after a great panel, including Charles Krauthammer). Most notably, he was wearing a black tee shirt — did not look even a little bit presidential. Looked very much like a hands-on governor, but I don’t think he’s thinking about an ‘08 run for Pres. or VP. (Whereas in a few shots of him during Bush’s tours of the Gulf I’ve thought he did look well put together, as I’d expect of a candidate.)
Re: the President’s speech…
My immediate reaction when he talked about Congressional hearings was that he’d made a mistake to bring them up. Hillary was calling for these, and was rebuffed. She looks pretty good with him promising cooperation on this. Then again, that’s not his worry…
His three proposals — I like them. Very much the conservative plan for dealing with poverty — entrepreneurship, home ownership and funds to individuals. I was surprised to hear his “homstead” proposal, selling off federal land in New Orleans. How much land does the federal government actually own in New Orleans? Did he just auction off the 5th circuit’s courthouse?
I may have been mistaken about the referrent of the Congressional hearings remark — I’m now hearing that Congressional Republicans have set up a “special committee” to investigate the response, which all but seven democrats voted against and which minority leader Pelosi labelled as “partisan”…
Clint, here’s a link…you’re right, it’s a commission…
That first Astrodome interviewee, quoted at length by Lorie Byrd, was great!
So great, in fact, that I’ll wager it will not be long before a certain faction will be claiming it was all a set up, further evidence of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
The minions of Karl Rove are still everywhere!
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The Dean Reynolds interviews of the Astrodome “town meeting” on ABC was hilarious. After the first interviewee didn’t bash Bush, he was going nuts digging for other answers.
We actually had phone calls from viewers complaining about the one-sided nature of the debrief.
People actually called in, eh? That’s classic…
It’s worth noting the sentence from Bush’s speech that the New York Times interprets as “forthrightly acknowledg[ing] his responsibility for the egregious mishandling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:”
But is the President actually admitting his own failure, or, is he saying that a hard-to-ancipate natural disaster (“not a normal hurricane”) overwhelmed the organization beneath him and created a problem that he, the competent leader, will now solve?
It reminds me of the commedian David Frye’s routine about Richard Nixon and Watergate. Fry as Nixon says “Let me explain the difference: People who are to blame lose their jobs; people who are responsible, keep them.”
What substansive penalty does the President Bush, the admitted responsible party, pay for his poor performance? How does that change his behavior? And how does that his recent statement that the federal government’s now going to take on reconstruction of New Orleans (to the tune of $200 billion) by cutting other spending, rather than raising taxes.
What is he going to cut then, the $231 million bridge for a handful of people that Senator Stevens of Alaska, a member of his owned party, plastered into the recent highway bill with any threat of his veto?
Twain Marks (if that is your real name), I certainly won’t defend the pork from Senator Stevens, and I think the bridge you speak of would be an excellent place to start. I think your criticism of Bush on this score is misguided; of course Bush is saying that Katrina overwhelmed the organization beneath him…isn’t that clear to everyone by now? Isn’t that why Michael Brown no longer heads FEMA? Isn’t that, in fact, what the liberals who politicized Katrina while people were still dying screamed at the top of their lungs?
I’m sorry, but I fail to see your point…Bush isn’t directly, personally responsible for Katrina, but as the ‘CEO’ of America, so to speak, the ultimate responsibility is his…as for what price he will pay, surely you don’t think the Katrina response is an impeachable offense. Since he doesn’t face another election, I suppose we’ll find out the political consequences in the 2006 mid-terms…
[...] As my good friend Mark Coffey said on his blog, the lead was buried in rhetorical set-up. The speechwriters need to know this wasn’t the State of the Union. “Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely — so we’ll have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.” This is going to cost money folks, and the money will be accounted for. I know of several conservatives who are cringing at the propect of the modern-day equivalent of the Marshall Plan, but the fact of the matter is this: Three whole states were basically decimated. [...]