Must read: "How Bush Blew It" ....criminal negligence made clear..

[MnFats]

...

I think this Newsweek piece has been posted before but it's so appalling it's worth repeating in case anyone missed it....
if there's not an impeachable offense in here there the law needs changes...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/

snippet:

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.

But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

[rocktivity]

1. Clearly, this is not the kind of mentality you want in a world leader.

...Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad. The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted...did not really sink in until Thursday night.
For me, the reality sank in the previous Monday morning when I read about the roof starting to peel off the Super Dome!

:headbang:
rocknation

[shraby]

2. I knew it would be bad as I watched it come

on shore through the night. I had read about New Orleans and common sense told me what would happen in the city with a hurricane of that magnitude. The darn thing almost filled the Gulf of Mexico. There was bound to be absolute devastation all along the shoreline where it came in.
I was at wunderground.com reading the blog and looking at the cams that were situated around New Orleans.
Only a dunderhead wouldn't realize what was about to occur.

[katty]

4. bush is NO LEADER-PERIOD-he the f/up frontboy for GOP, et al

[countmyvote4real]

3. To be informed, you have to care in the first place.

Once again, * was on vacation without a care in the world.