THE WHITE HOUSE AND KATRINA: STONEWALL AND LIE

The White House, trying to control the political damage in the wake of Katrina, is currently engaged in a two-prong counteroffensive against its critics. They're relying on Rovian tactics that have worked well for them in the past, lying and stonewalling. The first part, lying, has manifested itself in terms of blaming state and local officials, despite DHS's proclamation that they assume "primary responsibility" for dealing with disasters, and attacking critics as being partisan. An example of the second part, stonewalling, was evidenced today at a White House press briefing.

From Editor and Publisher, courtesy of BuzzFlash:

White House Press Briefing: Angry Reporters Hit
McClellan Hard on Hurricane, Ask if Heads Will Roll

Q I just want to follow up on David's questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President.

Q All right. So he will be held accountable as the head of the government for the federal response that he's already acknowledged was inadequate and unacceptable?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President's most important responsibility is the safety and security of the American people. He talks about that often. That is his most important responsibility. Again, there's going to be plenty of time to look at the facts and determine what went wrong and what went right and how the coordination was between the state and federal and local authorities. Right now we've got to continue doing everything we can in support of the ongoing operational activities on the ground in the region to help people.

Q Well, the President has said that this government can do many things at once: It can fight the war on terror, it can do operations in Iraq, and aid and comfort people in Louisiana. Can it not also find time to begin to hold people accountable? It sounds, Scott, as if the line that you're giving us -- which is, you don't want to answer questions about accountability because there's too much busy work going on --

MR. McCLELLAN: Wrong. No, wrong.

Q -- is a way of ducking accountability.

MR. McCLELLAN: You don't want to take away from the efforts that are going on right now. And if you start getting into that now, you're pulling people out that are helping with the ongoing response, Terry. Not at all. The President made it very clear, I'm going to lead this effort and we're going to make sure we find out what the facts were and what went wrong and what went right. But you don't want to divert resources away from an ongoing response to a major catastrophe. And this is a major catastrophe that we -- and we must remain focused on saving lives and sustaining lives and planning for the long-term. And that's what we're doing.

Q And there are people in Louisiana and Mississippi who are doing that job very well. Your job is to answer the questions.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I have.

Q By saying you won't answer.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, by saying that there's a time to look at those issues, but now is not the time, Terry.

Click here for the rest.

And the whole thing just goes on like that. Reporters ask hard questions, and Press Secretary McClellan snakes around them. It was a frustrating read, but I suppose I should be used to this by now--after all, it's what they've been doing since it was obvious that there were no WMDs in Iraq. What 's really sad is that, as usual, Karl Rove's masterful manipulation of the media and public opinion appears to be working to some extent.

Again, from Editor and Publisher courtesy of BuzzFlash:

First Gallup Poll on Hurricane Response
Finds Americans Extremely at Odds

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released this morning shows that the country very divided over who is primarily to blame for the poor emergency response to the hurricane castastrophe on the Gulf Coast.

Despite much criticism directed at the White House and federal government in the past week, President Bush seems to be maintaining much of his core support.

While 42% of respondents characterized Bush's response to the disaster as bad or terrible, 35% said it was good or great. Federal agencies got exactly the same marks. State and local officials fared only a little better--their response was described as bad or terrible by 35% and good or great by 37%.

Again, the views were strongly based on partisan leanings, with Republicans giving the president good grades on this issue by a 69% to 10% margin, while Democrats' views were precisely the opposite. But independents gave Bush a thumbs down by 47% to 29%.

Click here for the rest.

At least the swing vote doesn't seem to be fooled. But the conservative base, as usual, is ready to believe whatever bullshit Republican loyalists drop on the road, and that is, at least, disheartening. The truth is that Bush fucked up big time, and thousands of innocent Americans are dead as a result. Like I keep saying, this is not debatable: Bush swore to the US public after 9/11 that he wasn't going to let chaos and confusion get in the way of disaster relief ever again. It was his job to make sure everything ran smoothly, but he just straight-up failed.

For more on Bush's paralysis in the face of Katrina, check out this well documented timeline, from Think Progress courtesy of Eschaton, of Katrina related events from Friday, August 26th to Saturday, September 3rd. It's quite damning.

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