A miserable failure

The latest Bob Herbert op-ed has been making the rounds, but in case you somehow missed it, read it all. The money grafs are at the end.

Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration.

And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage continues to mount in Iraq) that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the United States over the next few years. At a time when effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome responsibilities.

Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble.

Let me say this again. Bush is not a leader, he just plays one on TV. He loves the power, the deference paid to him and being the center of attention when he can successfully float the fantasy that everything in the world is just rosy on account of him. But when it comes to living up to his responsibilities, just like in every other position that was handed to him, he fails to fulfill them every time.

Can we talk about impeachment yet? And I don't mean just of Bush, I mean of his entire administration, including the removal of every lame-brained, unqualified, political patronage appointee he has installed to oversee the safety of our people.