Bush Takes Responsibility for Blunders
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - President Bush' said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq'
"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.
The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.
"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.
He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.
As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."
Full Story
This is the first time I've seen anyone accept responsibility for what happened, and it came from the most unlikely of places - a man who's never wanted to admit mistakes. The cynic in me says this is a response to falling poll numbers, but ultimately it was the right thing to do and I applaud him for it.
1 comment:
As President, he needs to take responsibility for what transpired as it relates to the federal government. I applaud him as well. However, I am not convinced that the federal government is fully to blame. Too much evidence points to the local and state government as being inept. We went from 2,000 to 10,000 to 250 dead. Everyone was up in arms that we could let 10,000 people die because we didn't rescue in time yet it seems the number is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH lower. Still horrible mind you, but no where near where it could have been. That means the government did do something right to have rescued all those people. I wonder if that could have been 0 had the mayor let those lowly school buses evacuate the people while waiting for the greyhounds to arrive.
As for those who hate the blame game being those who should take the blame... give me a break. The anyone but Bush bashers look for any excuse to blame Bush for something! Dare I say the liberals have been waiting for a disaster to occur? Maybe Bush put giant fans in the sky to blow Katrina in that direction like the global warming gang is using giant laser guns to melt the polar ice caps.
As for the poll number, he can't run again so what is the big deal? Is he thinking about Jeb in '08?
Post a Comment