Newsweek's Evan Thomas writes a column for MSNBC which is titled "How Bush Blew it." I invite anyone to read this essay and explain to me how the article supports the title. It's not that Thomas doesn't try hard enough to make Bush look bad, but, since he limits himself to the facts, it just doesn't seem to work. If it weren't for the headline a reader would not know that he or she is supposed to come away from this piece with a negative opinion of the Bush administration's handling of the Katrina crisis. It becomes more clear with every new revelation that the disaster in New Orleans was in the main a home-grown affair and that attempts to shift the responsibility onto Washington in general and Bush in particular are simply specious.
That is not to say, however, that those attempts have been futile. A large segment of the public has apparently bought the idea that Bush fiddled while Rome burned and that the president's insouciance, or racism, turned the Superdome into Hotel Rwanda. This is objectively false, of course, but that doesn't stop the Bush-haters from repeating the charges over and over until they become part of the conventional wisdom.
Truth is destined for slow extinction in a nation unwilling to go to the effort of demanding it and too willing to accept whatever flapdoodle the media talking heads and opinion writers feed them.
