They broke out the Oxford cloth and chinos at the White House for President Bush's anniversary performance along the Gulf Coast - and Karl Rove rolled up the President's sleeves and tucked in that nifty leather belt, before he slipped the President's feet into soft loafers and nudged him into the Lousiana sunlight. The portrayal was the be simple: a man of action, humble in his dressed-down togs, patting local pols on the back and strolling through the wreckage.
But the wreckage stroll was a perp walk.
George Bush's very presence on the Gulf is a terrible admission, an admission that Katrina is a calamity worthy of that most American of news packages: the anniversary. The admission was also simple - without a catastrophic failure of leadership, without a record of historic incompetence, without a rudderless Federal administration there would be no anniversary news package. There would be no walk, no talk of "a moment of great sadness" to Brian Williams, no chinos and loafers.
The great, historic flood would still have happened; the disaster still would have been great. But the death and misery and suffering would have been mitigated by competence. A real response would have made the death toll more in keeping with other hurricanes in the eastern United States. Further, the anniversary story would have been brighter: real rebirth, the result of leadership that is colorblind and classblind.
Instead, we get the George Bush perp walk - the oh-so-slight mea culpa of "aw shucks, we coulda done better but we're gittin there." And still a great American city lies in ruins, the living memory of a President's response to a natural disaster than can best be expressed by the slight tipping of the wings of Air Force One.
Get the hell off the street, Mr. President and save the tears for the tragedy of your ruinous legacy.
