Bush on KATRINA response: Blame me

Bush on response: Blame me

BY CRAIG GORDON
WASHINGTON BUREAU. Staff writer Deborah Barfield Berry contributed to this story.

September 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - With a rare but simple declaration - "I take responsibility" - President George W. Bush said for the first time yesterday that he would bear the blame for mistakes in the widely criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

More than two weeks after Katrina hit, Bush also suggested that the response called into question the nation’s readiness to react to a major terrorist attack, something that has been the central focus of his administration in the four years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Katrina "exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said at the White House before traveling to New York City for a United Nations summit.

Scrambling to contain the widening political damage to Bush, the White House announced yesterday that Bush would travel to Louisiana tomorrow for the fourth time and would address the nation on recovery efforts.

Four days after Katrina hit, Bush called the federal response "not acceptable" in the face of widespread criticism but the furor continued, causing Bush’s FEMA chief Michael Brown to resign Monday under fire and Democrats to press for an independent investigation.

The White House has been trying to deflect criticism as the usual Washington "blame game," but shifted its tone dramatically yesterday, with Bush saying that he personally would take responsibility for mistakes that did occur - though stopping short of pointing to any.

Presidents are loath to admit to their administration’s shortcomings, and Bush has been famously reluctant to do so as well - most notably at an April 2004 news conference when a reporter asked Bush to name his biggest mistake, and he couldn’t think of one.

Several outside analysts, including some Republicans who say they are worried about the potential for lasting damage to Bush, said they believed Bush’s comments yesterday were designed to put the controversy over the government’s initial response behind him and focus attention on the more recent recovery efforts that are getting higher marks from Americans.

Bush took pains yesterday to draw a sharp line between the government’s initial bureaucratic response, and the recovery and lifesaving efforts. "I’m not going to defend the process going in," Bush said, "but I am going to defend the people who are on the front line of saving lives."

FEMA’s new acting chief, R. David Paulison, echoed that sentiment yesterday, saying he can’t help what has happened during the past two weeks, but said he wants to focus on helping hurricane victims going forward, particularly with such pressing needs as housing. "We’re going to have to move on," said Paulison, who said now is the time to get victims the "help they need and help they deserve."

Most worrisome for Bush, however, was that a new ABC News/Washington Post poll out this week showed a majority of Americans faulted Bush’s handling of Katrina, but also gave him lower marks on being a strong and decisive leader - always one of Bush’s strongest suits.

"The immediate reaction of the president and the administration is not what the public expected from him. ... and ultimately, in a major national crisis like this, the buck kind of stops at the White House," said GOP pollster Glen Bolger.

Ken Khachigian, a veteran of the Nixon White House, said, "The point here is to move forward, to get the debate moving from fault and blame to solutions."

But one veteran of a White House under fire, former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry, said he doubted a single statement would get Bush out of his political predicament, facing criticism over the war in Iraq and high gasoline prices.

"This president has an especially difficult time admitting he’s wrong, so when it happens, it probably has greater significance, but he’s got such a long list of complex problems now because of Katrina and other things, this is probably the least of his worries, to be humble enough to admit error," McCurry said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) praised Bush for taking responsibility, saying, "The president’s comments today will do more to move our country forward from this tragedy than anything that has been said by any leader in the past two weeks ... Let us now get to work rebuilding this great city and metropolitan area."

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