White House Plays Defense

The White House spent most of Monday trying to play down the conclusions of the Republican House report that was initially reported in Sunday's Washington Post. The report concluded that the Dunce in Chief was woefully disconnected from the realities on the ground in New Orleans and failed to respond to the Katrina crisis.

Frances Fragos Townsend went before the Press to say that Bush was engaged and that even if they had paid attention it wouldn't have really changed their plans. As usual, we are asked to trust them. This is where the wheels fall off for the White House. They refused to cooperate with the House or Senate committees investigating Katrina, claiming Executive privilege. Putting aside the fact that this secrecy is surely unwarranted in something that falls squarely in the area of the national interest, if you claim Executive privilege and refuse to cooperate you have to accept the consequences. It is natural for investigating committees to place an excess of blame on those who do not cooperate. Nagin cooperated, Blanco cooperated, even Chertoff--who drew most of the blame--cooperated.

If you don't cooperate you can't question the outcome.

The White House asserts that it is focusing on the future not the past. This crass kind of statement is perhaps symptomatic of all Bush's problems. The academic discipline of history of course is all about analysing the past in order to understand the present and not make the same mistakes in the future. Attending to history would maybe have prevented many of the Dunce in Chiefs blunders, like the invasion of Iraq.

No doubt the President's own report will squarely lay blame anywhere other than the White House (my bet is with Blanco) while providing little if any new information. We cannot let Bush dodge his incompetency and the future security of America by allowing him to deflect his culpability in Katrina.