Spinning Out of Control

Remember: Now’s not the time to “get political” or “point fingers,” but that doesn’t stop politics as usual in the Bush White House, nor prevent them from formulating the defense they will inevitably need.

Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

[…]

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

[…]

In many ways, the unfolding public relations campaign reflects the style Mr. Rove has brought to the political campaigns he has run for Mr. Bush. For example, administration officials who went on television on Sunday were instructed to avoid getting drawn into exchanges about the problems of the past week, and to turn the discussion to what the government is doing now.

"We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are," Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

When we were watching that, Mr. Shakes commented regarding Cheroff’s performance, “Fuck, he’s well rehearsed.” Indeed.

One senior White House official said that Mr. Bush appeared at a senior staff meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and called the results on the ground "unacceptable." At the encouragement of Mr. Bartlett, officials said, he repeated the comment later in the Rose Garden, the start of this campaign.

Gross.

I actually can’t decide what the most disgusting angle of this story is. Is it the fact that they’re already determined to pin the blame on local officials and once again haven’t the slightest inclination to accept even a modicum of responsibility for this tragedy? Or is it the fact that the people running this sideshow of a rescue operation are diverting their attention away from the effort, which was, ya know, kind of the problem in the first fucking place, to hold meetings about how to defend themselves against charges that they weren’t paying attention?

These people are total assholes.

(Hat tip John Howard.)