NY Times: Shift Blame from Fed to Local

So now that Bush has been exposed as an ineffective leader, we see that he is now rising to the challenging and excelling what he and his team are naturally good at, disimulation.

Via Dkos, the Bush political team is moving forward on an effort to shift blame from the Fed failures to local officials. I suppose next up on the blame list would be all those poor and mid class New Orleaneans who did not have cars or any means of evacaution even though the desire was there.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

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.

At the least, anyone will see that the whole leadership in terror thing from the current president is a joke. As I heard a talking head on TV say, if we were so unable and unprepared for a disaster with a whole three days notice, we have no hope if there were another terrorist attack.