Diarist's Note: I've looked for diaries about this, but haven't found anything along the lines of what I was planning to write. If someone has already addressed this and I missed it, I apologize. Nevertheless, it's something worth mentioning again and again.
"Let's start at the very beginning; a very good place to start."
From THE NEW YORK TIMES, 9/15/05...The Pledge is made, and the Organizer is designated:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - President Bush is to pledge in an address to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday night that the federal government will provide housing assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina and also help reimburse the states for costs they have absorbed in taking in evacuees, a White House official said Wednesday.
More on the flip...
The commitments are part of a series of initiatives that the president is expected to announce as he tries to recover from the political fallout over the government's handling of the storm.
The initiatives will encompass education, health care and other social services, with specific housing and job assistance for people who return to New Orleans to live. White House officials said the president would not call for any set-asides or quotas for minorities in reconstruction contracts.
[snip]
Mr. McClellan indicated that Mr. Bush would not use the speech to name a "reconstruction czar" to oversee the effort. A number of White House officials have advised the president to name such a czar, with Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of forces in the 2001 war in Afghanistan, being a favorite of Republicans who are pushing the idea.
[snip]
Instead, administration officials and a Republican close to the White House said Mr. Bush would offer some general principles about "building a better New Orleans" with stricter construction standards to try to avoid a replay of the recent catastrophe. Republicans said Mr. Bush would not mention a price tag, in large part because of budget and political pressures from House Republicans and other supporters angry about administration spending.
Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development.
From THE WASHINGTON POST...By that afternoon, the Organzier was confirmed, and the purpose was made clear:
Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.
That is Rove's hallmark.
Rove, Bush's long-time political adviser and the "architect" of Bush's ascendancy, was rewarded after the 2004 election with a position at the White House with overt policy responsibilities. But whereas in some previous White Houses, governance took precedence over campaigning once the election was safely over, Rove has shown no sign of ever putting policy goals above political ones. (See my Rove profile.)
But surely, in this case, Rove would think about the people. All one needs to do is check the White House's page on Hurricane Katrina Relief to see countless speeches or statements by Rove about setting things right...right? I mean, if there where "Ask the White House" chats with officials like Michael Chertoff, Alphonso Jackson, and Mrs. Lynne Cheney, why wouldn't Rove stop by to share his thoughts and re-assure the people?
Now granted, I'm not the first to ask the big question lingering in this diary. And hopefully, I won't be the last; someone should be asking that question, or a variation of it, every day up til the anniversary (why should the Presleys get all the attention?)
***************************
Zugzwang:
The fact that the player must make a move means that his position will be significantly weaker than the hypothetical one in which it is his opponent's turn to move. In combinatorial game theory, it specifically means that it directly changes the outcome of the game from a win to a loss.
When your best piece is in danger (whether it be from something like neglecting your role in rebuilding a region of the country or something like outing a covert CIA agent) what do you do?
Maybe you attempt to move your piece away from danger. The last time someone from the White House spoke in an interactive manner about Katrina recovery efforts was August 28, 2006. Not one mention of Rove's involvement. And the last time Bush addressed recovery and relief for the region, he was to concerned with football, eating and getting a license plate to think about Rove's involvement.
And now, with this man's departure, the mission to erase his role in this whole affair has begun:
Sara Taylor, who worked under Rove as political director at the White House, insisted that Rove was not pursuing a narrow, base-focused strategy following Bush's re-election.
"If you look at what he was pushing, it runs counter to peoples' claims that he was just a base guy," said Taylor, noting Rove's advocacy for Social Security reform, education reform and a comprehensive immigration policy. "All of these issues that Karl pushed on behalf of the president were not only the right policy but also would broaden the party," she said.
So sad. We can only hope there are more people who will tell it like it was.