Rewriting history.

“WASHINGTON – Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government’s poor handling of the natural disaster.

“Katrina to me was the tipping point,” said Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. “The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn’t matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn’t matter. P.R.? It didn’t matter. Travel? It didn’t matter.”

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: “Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin.”

Both of which were taken out of context in the Vanity Fair character assassination article. Three years later however, and the press still can’t get the story right on Katrina. While there was blame to go around, the fact of the matter is most of the non-response to the disaster occurred at the local and state political levels. Whether Ray Nagan’s incompetence at failing to get people on buses, or Gov. Blanco’s refusal to let in National Guard relief. All the way to Rep. William Jefferson who used National Guard resources to remove evidence from his house, this was a stain not on the Bush administration, but on the leadership of Democrats, and that’s exactly why you’ll never hear the MSM admit it.

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