9-14-05, 9:13 am

It took President Bush 13 days to take responsibility for his failure to respond adequately and swiftly to Hurricane Katrina, which cost the lives of probably several thousand people. But then again, he didn’t quite accept accountability as he added, with the grace of a fourth grader who doesn’t want to accept all of the punishment, 'to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right.' People trapped for days without food and water and with emergency rescuers ignoring their pleas for help might not be overly concerned about the President’s splitting of hairs.

Bush also has ignored charges that budget cuts that slashed or eliminated crucial disaster prevention projects in New Orleans are also his responsibility. Tens of millions of dollars needed to rebuild and strengthen the levee system in New Orleans were cut to help pay for three straight years of tax cuts for the rich, to fund pork barrel projects in the districts of the Republican congressional leadership, and Bush’s war in Iraq.

While Bush claimed a week ago that he didn’t know such massive flooding could occur, he hasn’t accepted responsibility for ignoring pleas and demands from officials at the Army Corps of Engineers, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, other members of Congress from Louisiana, the state’s governor, local emergency officials, and the local media that in a veritable uproar called for the funding.

Is his remarks on Tuesday, Bush also neglected to accept responsibility for appointing a political hack and a former leader of his presidential campaign, Michael Brown, to head FEMA. He didn’t accept responsibility for the fact that FEMA, under Brown’s leadership, responded swiftly enough to Miami-Dade County, Florida, which was 100 miles from Hurricane Frances in 2004, but which also took in $31 million in questionable and fraudulent claims. Bush didn’t accept the fact that these questionable claims, which subsequently came under investigation, were covered just two months before the 2004 presidential election in a crucial district of a crucial state. Some might call it a $31 million vote payoff. Responsibility is easy to accept when it is a mere public relations stunt, and one expects no real consequences from doing so. When Ted Bundy confessed to killing additional women days before his execution, he did so only to attract attention and to extend his life, not to gain atonement for his crimes.

Responsibility for mistakes, errors, lies, misjudgments and crimes is something President Bush has a serious problem with accepting. From late spring of 2002 until March 2003, members of the Bush administration threatened and warned the public and manipulated and lied to Congress to push their way into a war with Iraq. Now 1,900 US troops have been killed and upwards of 100,000 Iraqis are dead. No weapons of mass destruction were found. No connections to Al Qaeda existed. No imminent threat was real. No responsibility.

Bush response? A chuckle and grin and a finger pointing at the CIA. But perhaps Bush does feel guilty after all. Reports from some short meetings Bush has held with families of killed soldiers in Iraq indicate that he blubbers incoherently, barely holds back his tears, and even loses his composure as his aides hurry him from the room.

Bush never accepted responsibility for an economy that never quite recovered from the 2001 recession. He blamed terrorist attacks, not unsound economic policy that saw the largest redistribution of wealth to the richest sections of the population in US history. Nor did he or his supporters blame the economy’s sluggishness on huge cuts in job creation investment programs, cuts to the social safety net, and dramatic cuts – much like those that caused New Orleans’ levees to crumble – in funding for schools, hospitals, and the infrastructure in general. He did not accept accountability for a trade policy that encouraged the movement of jobs and investment capital out of the country.

Nor is he likely to admit that the new abyss facing the US economy – fueled by skyrocketing oil and gas prices and the devastation of the hurricane – is his fault. In fact, if history serves as a guide, his response to economic crisis will be to find ways to increase the profits of large corporations, mainly by pushing down wages, cutting more taxes, creating more corporate subsidies and giveaways, and cutting social services and public programs. Look for a reinvigorated attack on Social Security.

He has ignored the health care crisis for 5 years, so why would he even begin to accept some blame for its growth every year since he took office. About 46 million people go without health care coverage. What could be more life threatening? What could be a bigger threat of widespread disaster? Mum’s the word.

He will go on – resolute - sending young men and women to their deaths in Iraq for no acceptable good reason other than to subjugate oil and impose a neo-con vision on countries he hasn’t the slightest inkling about. He is building global threatening nuclear weapons and waving them around the world to cause the nations of the earth to tremble. He will push for more tax cuts for his corporate donors, friends, and the wealthy. He will turn up his nose at the unemployed, the growing underclass of impoverished, and the sick. He moved slower than molasses to save lives on the Gulf Coast, but with great speed and determination to suspend wage protections for workers who do federal work. Why should he care? They didn’t give to his campaign.

But oil companies gave millions. Halliburton is on the board of directors of the Bush administration. Defense contractors, right-wing fundamentalist church groups, and health care companies all gave hand over fist. So they are getting what they want. Some of the lucky companies will even find ways to profit off of the Katrina disaster with Bush’s blessing and a tax break to boot. Others have been raking in billions from the Iraq war and the general hysteria stirred up by the administration over terrorism.

Bush will gladly accept responsibility for a system that allows companies to profit off of disaster, disease, fear, death – that is capitalism after all isn’t it? And we have to accept such a system regardless, right? But Bush won’t be held accountable for the deaths and the disease and the violence. No sir.

He is, after all, his mothers’ son. Barbara, in her well-known comments, too, refused to accept responsibility for having to 'worry' her 'beautiful mind' about the problems of the working class and thought that living like refugees was something the poor of New Orleans would find comfortable given the usual conditions in which she believed they live.

So Mr. Bush keep your meaningless words. We don’t want to hear them unless you and your party are going to accept the punishment that fits the crime.

Kanye West was right. Bush doesn’t care about Black people. But the whole truth is that Bush doesn’t care about most of us.



--Reach Leo Walsh at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.