September 15, 2005
Bush and Katrina
Peggy Noonan writes a great column today. I have been such a fan of hers for so many years but lately have failed to connect with her ideas and her lyricism. A friend has emailed after a few of her columns "She's on the crack pipe, again!"
Put today starts out with a poignant look at 9/11 which was legitimately personal for her. Her book, "A Cross, A Heart and A Flag," includes some of her best work. Then a perfect segue to Katrina and a realistic assessment of the damage done to the Bush Presidency. She has more and better perspective than me, but we share one idea I had this morning.
A couple of hours before reading Ms. Noonan, I thought: "This is W's first objective failure. He's done a dozen things that I’ve disliked, and a thousand things that Silence has disliked, but those are up for discussion. Yet NOBODY can completely defend the Federal response."
It might be "blood on the floor" as Jack Welch said yesterday, but nobody will defend Mike Brown. I wrote an essay once, saying that the best thing about W was the CEO Presidency, with serious achievers in important posts rather than political hacks. Noonan reminds all of us that Brown was a political hack, He surely gave money or knew somebody, he did not earn the job by competence.
I will go with Margaret that the second term is recoverable, and hope with my friends at the WSJ Ed Page that some enlightened thought is bought to the relief efforts: more Enterprise Zones and less WPA.
Mostly, it is just a great column. I did not excerpt a word, you can read it all here.