I've been expecting someone to diary this by now, but it seems to have slipped under the radar, except for a couple of comments: Why was Cheney missing for the first critical days of the Katrina disaster?
Talk Left has one suggestion: Cheney is so fed up with Bush's "leadership" that he decided to sit this crisis out and let Bush handle it on his own:
A few months ago, I heard of a lunch conversation that Cheney had with a political type in Wyoming. I have no idea if it's true or not, but it makes some sense. Here's the tale:
Cheney has been getting tired of being called upon to fix Bush's mistakes. Cheney said Bush is almost incapable of making any decision. He waffles and waffles. Then, once he makes a decision, he refuses to change it. Because of his born-again faith, he says "It's in the hands of G-d now" and washes his hands of it. Then Cheney is called in to repair the damage.
More speculation below.
Talk Left adds that Cheney only surfaced because the party begged him to come back and save Bush from himself. (No references or sources given.)
I used to think that Bush really was in charge; he is not dumb, and he is a clever, even unscrupulous politician. He has no curiosity about the world, he is even more fixed in his preconcevied notions than Reagan, he has absolutely no talent for empathy or introspection, and he is stubborn beyond a fault, but I always felt that he was the one making the decisions that were screwing up the country. But the NOLA disaster happened while not only Bush but most of his staff - his handlers - were on vacation. Forced to make decisions on his own, he repeatedly made bad choice after bad choice. And he did it where the whole country could see it.
Now, almost every other decision this administration has made has been equally disasterous for the country and the world. NOLA is different. One reason, as many here and elsewhere have pointed out, is that, unlike say Iraq, Bush's critics can't be accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Hurricane Ophelia is not going to feel emboldened because the Democrats finally got a pulse. There is no underground network of nature terrorists plotting the next natural disaster.
Even so, this administration has demonstrated in the past a positively evil genius for making black look like white. What else was different this time?
Well, all of the first string staff were off on vacation (and it seems Rove has been having kidney stones, which can be extremely distracting). And then there's Cheney. Or rather, there wasn't Cheney.
Nora Ephron raises this same point in a Huffington Post blog:
For some time I've been wondering whether anyone is going to explain the true mystery of what happened after Hurricane Katrina struck. I read thousands of words on the subject in this morning's New York Times, and I still don't get it. Where was the President? And more to the point, where was the Vice President?
And she has a theory:
You'll be happy to hear that I have a theory. Is it possible that the President and the Vice President have fallen out? I mean, I'm just asking.
She goes on to remind us how, on Sept. 11, Bush was sent flitting hither and yon in Air Force One while Cheney ran things from Washington. IIRC, it was Cheney, not Bush, who gave the order to shoot down civilian planes if necessary. And remember when that small plane flew into restricted DC airspace a few months ago? Bush was out bicycling and wasn't even told about it until it was all over. Cheney was the one they rushed to the underground bunker. That looked so bad that even Laura had to complain about it.
So, the case is getting stronger that Cheney has been running the country all along, using Bush as his front man. Cheney knows the country would never tolerate him the way it has Bush; he has no charm, no charisma, and cannot hide his contempt for the people and the law. I strongly suspect this is the real reason he has been seen less in public than any other VP in memory, even as he wields far more power than any of his predecessors. (And also why, Novak notwithstanding, he will never run for president himself.)
But now it seems Cheney has decided to let Bush self-destruct. Or at least fumble badly. Why? He cannot abandon Bush at this point; he has too much invested and his agenda would fall apart if Bush loses control.
Two thoughts, and then I'll throw this open for your speculations:
- Cheney is actually so disgusted with Bush and his inability to do the simplest things right that this overrode his sense of caution, and he decided to wash his hands of him, and had to called back to fix things by the party leadership who are staring at an '06 and '08 disaster.
- Bush may have decided to write his own script and not follow Cheney's lead, and Cheney saw Katrina as an opportunity (an "exercise," as he called it) to teach him a lesson.
Your turn.