Bush library foundation president already spinning Katrina response.
Bush library foundation president already spinning Katrina response.
In an article today on the George W. Bush presidential library, McClatchy notes that “[t]he present hasn’t worked out so well” for Bush. “So now he’s banking on a kinder and gentler future.” Bush library foundation president Mark Langdale says he is “confident that people will come to change their mind about the president and some of the decisions he made.” How will the Bush library accomplish this task? Spin. And Langdale has already begun, calling the debacle surrounding Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina “the limitations of government assistance”:
Langdale says the Bush museum will not avoid the most divisive episodes of the president’s eight years in office, such as the administration’s much-criticised humanitarian response to Hurricane Katrina. [...]
“There’s an interesting lesson about Katrina and the limitations of government assistance to respond to big natural disasters,” Langdale said. “They are acts of God, and they are tough. It’s definitely a story line I would not shy away from addressing somehow in the museum.”
Indeed, this doesn’t seem to be Langdale’s first act of Bush celebration. Pictured behind him in a photo accompanying a separate article on the library last week was a photo of Bush superimposed over Martin Luther King Jr.
(ThinkProgress has been keeping a close eye on developments with the Bush library, and we will continue to do so. Read our related posts here.)
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The bust doesn’t even look like Bush… the smirk is missing.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:00 pmMark Langdale: Turd polisher & ball washer.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pmWouldn’t a bust of Bush’s a** be more fitting than one of his head? … oh, yeah, not much difference is there?
“the limitations of government assistance”????? Oh, that’s right, we are all suppposed to individually own bulldozers, dump trucks, and road repair equipment along with our duct tape and plastic window covering to handle these disasters in rugged cowboy style.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:03 pm“So now he’s banking on a kinder and gentler future.”
Yes, I want it to be so kinder and gentler that Bush believes it’s OK to venture out of the country to experience that kinder and gentler world!
And then be arrested as a war criminal at his first foreign stop.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:04 pmCall it what it is: Mr. Bungle went to Washington
December 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pmKinda looks like Johnny Carson.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:06 pmThe future will not be kind to Bush. If anything, it will be much harsher as the details of his Administration become availalbe. His eight years will be remember with shame.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:07 pmHa, I thought you guys made up that image of Bush and Martin Luther King Jr.
Man.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:07 pmWASHINGTON — President Bush on Sunday defended the invasion of Iraq, calling it a “catastrophic success” despite continued violence and the lack of weapons that drove the country to war.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130502,00.html
That will be the tag line for his whole term: catastrophic success. He succeeded at catastrophes like no one else ever has or ever will.
Spin that, library man.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:07 pmThe only presidential library that allows readers to go ahead and color the pictures with crayons
December 16th, 2008 at 3:14 pmThere’s an interesting lesson about Katrina and the limitations of government assistance to respond to big natural disasters,” Langdale said.
_________
Yup. Norquist finally got his wish. A government so small it could drown 1,000 Americans in a giant bathtub.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:20 pmThe Bush Lie-brary. After the last 8 years, what else would one expect?
December 16th, 2008 at 3:20 pmCaption:
“I’m smarter than the real Bush.”
¶ AIO
December 16th, 2008 at 3:20 pmGod didn’t fix the levees.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pmwell said, Zooey, @ #2.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pmSuccinct and to the point.
They can have a bust of Jeb Bush and a $474,500 check.
After Bush omitted Tenet Health’s Memorial Medical Center and its 34 patient deaths from his Lessons Learned report, Jeb landed a spot on the Tenet Health Board of Directors. Pay = $474.500.
http://whistleblower.labovick.com/2007/06/articles/legal-news-breaking-stories/jeb-bush-earns-474500-as-a-new-board-member-for-tenet-healthcare/
December 16th, 2008 at 3:25 pmLie-brary would be a better spelling since that is what we have all had to put up with for 8 years.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:25 pmOfficial LIEbrary explanation on Katrina: “No one could have imagined the levees being breached.”
If you believe that, then I can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:36 pmThat bust of chimpy reminds me of all the busts of Hitler there were in Germany from the period of 1933-45.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:40 pmDeja Hu: No one could have imagined our Treasury being breached’
December 16th, 2008 at 3:41 pmThat bust looks like it needs an old size 10 sneaker super glued to its cheek. A simple gesture of the respect I feel for Bush. Maybe future visitors could use it as an ashtray so they can show due respect too.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:41 pmIt makes one wonder what euphemism they plan on using for “War Criminal”.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm“Pictured behind him in a photo accompanying a separate article on the library last week was a photo of Bush superimposed over Martin Luther King Jr.”
This got to be joke. The clown President can rewrite history or be smarter than a 5th grader when reading My Pet Goat for all I care. The way that Bush crawled from out of the sewer pipe to steal both Presidency, lie to the American people, and destroyed this country and the world financially, mentality, and emotionally, is the same way that he will crawl back into come January 20th. The American people and the world know what the Criminal-in-chief did. Nothing will change that.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:50 pmSP Biloxi Says:
“Pictured behind him in a photo accompanying a separate article on the library last week was a photo of Bush superimposed over Martin Luther King Jr.”
This got to be joke.
Yeah, Bush and his cronies are laughing all the way to the bank. At us.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:59 pmI’m going to change my mind about Chimpy…?
No, I really don’t think so. No. Not ever.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pmThey’re being pretty liberal with the word ‘library’. It should be called a ’spin cycle’ or maybe ‘bush league historical perspective’ or have a plaque at the enterance saying that ‘the views expressed herein may not conform to reality or factual information’. Next someone will be calling fox news a think tank.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:26 pmPlease tell me that my tax dollars are not helping to fund W’s lie-brary. Unless they rename it “Bush’s Hall of Shame,” I refuse to pay for it!
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States…”
– George W. Bush, January, 2001
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It’s just a god-damned piece of paper!”
December 16th, 2008 at 4:45 pm– George W. Bush, November, 2005
Bush will say he freed the slave and it wasn’t Lincoln. Next he signed the Civil Rights Bill not LBJ. Yes so much History will be added to the Bush legacy one would think he is ageless. Bush also advised FDR and was the person who planned the New Deal but FDR took the credit. Now as for the 8 year failures and crimes well it was Bill Clinton who did it and Obama helped. Bush/Cheney know if you lie enoght and the Media supports the lie Americans will believe it as it has been successful for 8 years.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:04 pmSpeaking about honorifics, how is the renaming of that LA sewerage processing facility in his ‘honor’ doing?
December 16th, 2008 at 5:13 pmThey are going with the “Fairy Tale” version of the Bush Story.
They must have his bedroom mic’d, and are recording what he says in his sleep.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:14 pmAnd yet when hurricaines hit the mainland under other presidents, they responded. What’s the diff ? Also see the response to Florida
December 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pmLangdale was not specific enough.
“There’s an interesting lesson about Katrina and the limitations of the Bush administration to respond to big natural disasters,” Langdale said.
There.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:45 pmThen it is official… Bush’s library will be the first real LIEbrary of its kind.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:59 pmAnd let the history books show, bush even LIED in his library.
Does this murderous sociopath really think the public will fall for this more of the same con?
December 16th, 2008 at 6:04 pmWell, he knows 23% of the public will fall for it.
Right Keltoi?
December 16th, 2008 at 6:43 pmMight as well just make the damn thing an amusement park.
And the whole “limitations of government assistance” only flies until a similar tragic event is actually handled with the due foresight, response and follow-through. Then this guy will look like a complete tool still claiming that it’s not possible to do so.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:01 pmI believe it was Hurricane Frederick in the Carolinas where Bill Clinton had fleets of trucks loaded with supplies and relief workers staged just outside the impact area before the storm hit.
It is possible for government to function. We just need to elect governors who can function.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:06 pmThe Bush Presidential Library at SMU will have a second-hand shoe store built adjacent to it…to sell all the shoes that no doubt will be thrown at the library’s front door by an adoring public.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:31 pmOn a more serious note, the “limitations of government assistance” during Hurricane Katrina, following the flooding of New Orleans (NO), was done on purpose by the Bush administration (BushCo).
Katrina happened in three stages:
1) Pre-landfall preparations.
Days before landfall, state governors in Katrina’s projected path officially request federal disaster assistance. BushCo/DHS/FEMA respond, designating and deploying FEMA federal disaster coordinators to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, to help state and local officials. Michael Brown, head of FEMA under DHS chief Michael Chertoff, initially coordinates the federal response, placing MEDEVAC helicopter teams, along with other federal personnel and materials, outside Katrina’s projected path, ready to rush to aid any U.S. citizens once Katrina makes landfall and weakens while moving inland.
Federal disaster relief assets are in place. Katrina hits. The Gulf Coast is devastated along many stretches, but casualties are minimal due to evacuations. Everything is going according to plan.
2) New Orleans’ levees breached, flooding NO and stranding a whole lot of U.S. citizens on rooftops.
This is when things went horribly wrong…on purpose. BushCo saw an opportunity to score political points against Democrats in Louisiana, especially Gov. Blanco (D) and NO Mayor Nagin (D).
Thus, on the morning after the NO levees were breached, Republicans began a smear campaign against Blanco and Nagin, causing the phone lines at FEMA’s disaster relief command center in Baton Rouge to be inundated with calls from reporters demanding to know what Blanco and Nagin were doing to rescue people stranded on rooftops in the flooded NO.
At the same time, BushCo (higher-ups at DHS and in the Bush White House) started blocking FEMA’s attempt to rush aid to NO. FEMA’s federal disaster relief coordinator in Baton Rouge reportedly expressed frustration the day after NO flooded that his orders sending federal aid to NO were being countermanded, with supplies and personnel either being stopped or redirected elsewhere from NO.
But you see, BushCo’s smear campaign wouldn’t have been as effective if pre-positioned FEMA assets had made an appearance in NO, with helicopters either rescuing people from rooftops or ferrying food and water to those thousands of U.S. citizens holed up at the NO Super Dome.
In other words, BushCo intentionally limited government assistance to NO on purpose.
But there’s more. BushCo (DHS-head Chertoff and top BushCo officials) also blocked attempts by anyone else trying to reach NO and help our fellow citizens there. (Brown at FEMA had been bypassed by this time just like the FEMA coordinator in Baton Rouge).
“Good Samaritan” boaters, several hundred, headed to NO to navigate the flooded city and rescue people from rooftops. They were turned away.
Truckers carrying much-needed ice were redirected elsewhere.
Air Force helicopter pilots, flying a resupply mission to an AFB outside NO, helped pluck people from rooftops until they ran low on fuel and had to return to their Pensacola FL airbase. They were severely reprimanded upon their return (Pentagon chain of command so Donald Rumsfeld was involved).
When looked at as a whole, everything that happened in NO after it flooded happened on purpose, as part of a BushCo scheme to smear Louisiana’s Democratic leaders, in BushCo hopes of Louisiana voters dumping Democrats for Republicans in post-Katrina elections.
And then there’s the matter of BushCo trying, during the week following the flooding of NO, to force Gov. Blanco to federalize Louisiana, turning over control of her state’s security and national guard units to BushCo. This is another reason why BushCo purposefully withheld federal disaster relief assets from NO.
BushCo wanted control of security (for Blackwater). Gov. Blanco refused repeatedly to cede to their demands, with the final confrontation being on Air Force One at the end of the week, face-to-face with Bush. Gov. Blanco, in the meantime, had placed urgent requests to other state governors for any of their state’s national guard units (and equipment) that they could spare (that wasn’t deployed over in Iraq). One year later, BushCo got the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a law giving BushCo the ability to federalize any state’s security during a disaster, as declared by BushCo, bypassing completely the governor of any state.
3) The months (and years) after Katrina along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Most (if not all) of the federal/taxpayer money allocated by Congress for Gulf Coast recovery and reconstruction has gone to Republican supporters of BushCo.
Do formaldehyde-laced trailers ring a bell? Provided by, via no-bid contracts, Republican-owned trailer manufacturers in the Midwest, far from the hurricane-affected states?
Republican-owned construction companies out of Florida, who in most cases took taxpayer money and ran, or at least did sub-standard work…to improve their profit margin.
The waste has been enormous, just like over in Iraq. Republican fraud is rampant, just like over in Iraq. And BushCo (along with their conservative lapdogs in Congress) have been negligent in either providing oversight or accountability. Go figure.
But don’t the let the word “incompetence” fool you, when discussing all that BushCo has done over the past eight years. Everything that they’ve done has been done on purpose, with a clearly evil intent. The limited government assistance to the dead and dying in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, purposefully done by BushCo, is just one nefarious example.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:39 pmW’s legacy of eating McCain’s birthday cake needs to be spun?
December 17th, 2008 at 3:33 am