I'm just going to put forward a framework for understanding Bush's response to Katrina. Don't expect anything new or profound; I'm just trying to corral a lot of informaton and vitriol from those Kossacks with stronger stomach than mine who were watching the 5 PM EST statement he made.
Can we all agree that:
1)
Bush cannot, on his own, decide what to say or do. His "CEO" mangement style (according to Paul O'Neill and others) consists of selecting from vigorously-presented options.
2)
Bush's "handlers" therefore determine what moves he should make.
3)
Bush's "handlers" generally make politically expedient decisions about his public statements. Visiting a Mosque after 9/11; the bullhorn; "Mission Accomplished"; We saw through the theatrics but most Americans didn't seem to. In other words, the Doonesbury-esque "Department of Symbolism" was clearly a crackerjack team making shrewd, canny decisions.
(more below)
4)
Those same "handlers suddenly seem tone-deaf. This covers not just Katrina but Cindy Sheehan too...any situation where we expect the President to GO DO SOMETHING or GO SAY SOMETHING...he doesn't do the usual mangled-English job he's been doing for four years. Instead, he VANISHES.
5)
CONCLUSION: Something has changed; specifically, something about Bush himself has changed. They see the falling approval ratings and they can't even put him on television until two days later and not in prime time. They don't dare get him in the same room with Cindy Sheehan. I propose that Bush has, in some way, become UNBROADCASTABLE because he's some unknown combination of a) strategically misinformed; b) medicated; c) depressed and given to tantrums or some such; d) drunk/stoned.
Look how much easy political capital they could have garnered just by handling the Katrina photo-ops properly. We would have seen right through it but many wouldn't, and the MSM would help convince people that he was "decisive" etc. They've risked an enormous "PR debacle" by keeping him muzzled.
Ergo, they HAVE to keep him muzzled.
I realize I'm just collecting ideas that have been floating around here for a long time. But the invisibility of the President is reaching unprecedented levels.