Exposing Weakness

Imagine if a few weeks ago someone had polled all of the Bush critics in the country, and asked them to list the primary faults that they see in this administration. I suspect, give or take a few entries, the results would have looked something like this:

Obsession with Iraq at the cost of all other national priorities
Unwillingness to admit mistakes
Hostility to science
Embarrassing juvenile attitude
Indifference to the fates of the poorest members of society
Cronyism and unwillingness to fire anyone for incompetence
Tendency to spend way too much time on vacation
Inability to plan and execute large-scale operations effectively

If Hurricane Katrina ends up being the turning point when it becomes clear to a solid majority of the country that Bush has been a fundamentally incompetent leader, I suspect it will be because the Katrina crisis turned out expose all eight of these flaws. The hurricane itself may have swerved east and dropped down to a category 3 before it hit land, but where Bush's political reputation was concerned, it was the perfect storm.

[via stevenberlinjohnson.com]