since he wrote this. Might be fun to see! He didn't know how correct he was when he first put this one out there.
Glad you posted this! It's worth reminding people that this kind of transformation was happening, here and there, already. The ground was already fertile. But NOW - va-va-VOOM!! It shows an arc developing as the pResident's popularity continues on a downturn. He's losing more people than he's gaining. There will be some, who are wooed back by his piddly statement today about accepting responsibility within certain parameters:
"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
They'll think it's a sign that he's changed and new and improved and blah-blah-blah. That will happen, I'm afraid. Too many people (including the media) are too preconditioned for five long, arduous years to give this asshole the benefit of the doubt - just anyway, just because. Benefit-of-the-doubt-related-program-activities, I suppose. Just trying to be realistic about what we're up against, and how urgent it is to work on this, and do whatever you can.
That said, Craig Crawford pointed something out that I was glad to see - it means some in the media are seeing this for what else it can be, and now, they're not terribly hesitant about saying so:
(snip)
The trouble for the GOP is how Katrina exposed to the bone what many consider Bush’s true persona. We’ve seen it all in the two weeks since her mighty winds decimated the Gulf Coast: his patrician instincts, the seemingly disingenuous posturing and a stubborn refusal to fully take responsibility for what goes wrong.
The more frantically Bush now tries to compensate for early mistakes, the more serious those initial failings seem.
Bush could throw a trillion dollars into the Mississippi Basin, dispatch hundreds of spinners to shift the blame — even fly to the region every other day until he is out of office — but to many Americans none of that would undo their first impressions of his above-it-all response to Katrina. Not because they think he’s personally responsible for the hurricane’s disastrous aftermath. Only his most partisan foes take that stand.
http://www.cq.com/public/crawford_current.html (snip)
In short, rising numbers of Americans perceive Bush as someone who thinks he’s always right, who believes his critics are know-nothing wimps, and who considers the little people as mere tools for the rich and powerful to do what he considers right for America.
Of course, plenty of people see him much differently and quite positively. But even if this harsh view of him is completely wrong, Republicans cannot afford to let it expand to include the party as a whole. Perhaps that is why none of the 2008 Republican presidential contenders stepped forward to defend Bush or his administration in the early days of Katrina’s aftermath.
Watching the president in his most unguarded moments of hurricane damage control, you had to wonder if he really gets it — if he really cares about average people unless their suffering threatens his political power. His priorities became suspect almost as soon as he landed for his first on-the-ground inspection tour after the hurricane.
If guys like him are saying this, as Dan Froomkin is in the Washington Post - talking about how bush's behavior has betrayed him and how we may now be seeing an "emperor has no clothes moment:"
Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.
Maybe it's Bush's sinking poll numbers -- he is, after all, undeniably an unpopular president now. Maybe it's the way that the federal response to the flood has cut so deeply against Bush's most compelling claim to greatness: His resoluteness when it comes to protecting Americans.
But for whatever reason, critical observations and insights that for so long have been zealously guarded by mainstream journalists, and only doled out in teaspoons if at all, now seem to be flooding into the public sphere.
An emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/12/BL2005091200806_pf.html Point being, as Crawford said, there will be some, I suspect MANY MORE now than before, whose hearts probably won't be melted by bush "claiming responsibility" for what the feds didn't do about Katrina. They've been turned. Katrina only confirmed something they, like the guy in the original post, had already come to admit they'd begun to understand - that the status quo we've got now, with conservatives and republi-CONS running everything, ain't workin'.
This will all die down for some souls determined not to be saved. But for others, I think bush crossed a Rubicon. He's NOT what they thought. He's NOT what they expected. He's NOT what they were sold. And it's gonna start eating at some of them, making them feel betrayed, cheated, and lied to - especially when bush was presented to us as the "anti-Clinton." "Oh, HE'LL never lie to us! He's a straight-shooter good-ol'-boy I'd like to have a beer with!" They've seen that they, too, TRUSTED their president, and he LIED to them. Not just about how he was Mr. Invincible and the only one to keep us safe, but also about just exactly who and what he is as a person. Some of 'em won't like what they see and the facade they now realize they were sold.
And that resentment can only pay dividends to the Democrats. If they're savvy enough to exploit it.
PLEASE GOD!
PS: Dang it - sorry this is so long...
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