Bush the Responsible

Well, we've made it through the flood of media coverage of the first anniversary of Katrina's gulf landfall. The Prez was far more prompt with his arrival on the coast than he was last year. Of course, I suppose you could argue that there's more at stake this time--for him, anyway. His presidency was at stake last year, but neither he nor any of his advisors realized it. This year, though, everybody knows it. I'm sure he'd love to just ignore the occasion, but that's not viable. I guess he did the only thing he really could: accept responsibility.

I take full responsibility for the federal government's response, and a year ago I made a pledge that we will learn the lessons of Katrina and that we will do what it takes to help you recover. I've come back to New Orleans to tell you the words that I spoke on Jackson Square are just as true today as they were then.

Well, yeah, they're even more true, because not nearly as much has happened as should've. But what does any of that mean? What good is it that the Prez has taken responsibility? We're just a couple of weeks away from the anniversary of him taking responsibility last year. Here's a contemporary account:

President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and that the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

So that's two years in a row that he's taken responsibility and pledged to "do what it takes." How should we expect this year's result to be any different from last year's?