Hot off the AP Wire

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."

Their comments are a part of an oral history of the Bush White House that Vanity Fair magazine compiled for its February issue, which hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and nationally on Jan. 6. Vanity Fair published comments by current and former government officials, foreign ministers, campaign strategists and numerous others on topics that included Iraq, the anthrax attacks, the economy and immigration.

Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that as a new president, Bush was like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee whom critics said lacked knowledge about foreign affairs. When Bush first came into office, he was surrounded by experienced advisers like Vice President Dick Cheney and Powell, who Wilkerson said ended up playing damage control for the president.

"It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president — because, let's face it, that's what he was — was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire," Wilkerson said, adding that he considered Cheney probably the "most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur" he'd ever met.

"He became vice president well before George Bush picked him," Wilkerson said of Cheney. "And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush — personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum."

The ignorance of the American public to be hoodwinked and lied to is never more than a sound bite away.

Say NO to Rick Warren

If you've done your investigative homework on Pastor Rick Wareen better than Barack Obama did, then you understand better than Barack Obama does that the term inclusive does not mean that you make a decision to embrace a man who is a self-made demagogue and was lifted to the level of spiritual celebrity with the help of a free press that did not do their homework either.

Pastor Rick Warren is a man who tells his female church members to submit to their husbands in every way possible, in or outside the bedroom.

Pastor Rick Warren is a man with a purpose driven life alright. Part of his purpose apparently is to exclude gay and lesbian people from becoming members of his church, oh but you won't find that out because that line was just (conveniently) removed from his web site's mission statement yesterday

Pastor Rick Warren is a man, who in defense of his opinions regarding gay and lesbians told Ann Curry of the 'Today' Show that he holds himself back from having sex with every beautiful woman he sees. First, what does that have to do with his opinions on gays and lesbians? Second thought is, gee, he doesn't even want to get to know her a little bit first? All he wants is to have sex? If it looks like a misogynist and talks like a misogynist and thinks like misogynist, it is a flaming, bible thumping, misogynist. Clergyman or not.

Pastor Rick Warren has also said in another interview that it is this country's duty to kill the head of Iran.

Pastor Rick Warren talks a great deal about environmental issues but what exactly has he done about it? Not much unless you count setting up missionaries all over Africa to proselytize and convert as many as possible to his way of thinking attacking environmental issues?

Obama says words do matter. It's time he thought about the words Pastor Rick Warren is spewing.

It's time Obama thought about the fact that he has put Rick Warren, a misogyny pig, in a position to bless my country. My country and Obama's I thought stood for equality among all, not just who Pastor Rick Warren's Christian retail style of religion appeals to.

Who's Jimmy Stewart?

I received a comment today from a reader (and thank you for reading and the kind words!) regarding my last article, It's The Press Stupid, asking who Jimmy Stewart was.

I keep forgetting that in my head I'm barely out of my twenties, but in dog years I'm really ancient. So I hereby apologize for taking for granted that everyone would get the reference because they were as old as I am.

Jimmy Stewart was an American film and stage actor. During his heyday, the thirties and forties, he was considered one of the Brad Pitts of his time. He starred in too many classic films to list here but you may have seen him in, It's A Wonderful Life, since it's shown every year around this time.

The film I was thinking of though was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington which was made in 1939. For it's in that movie he plays a man naive enough to think that politics should be an honest profession and pay an honest man an honest wage.

The point I was making in my piece was a sad lament that none of the journalists of our pop culture today has the courage or guts or maybe it's just a lack of intelligence? to stand up to a person of political authority and point a finger and say, "Now just hold on a minute sir! the way Jimmy Stewart did in that movie. Youtube has clips of the movie's critical scenes.

My piece in fact, though it was written nearly two months ago, was just crystallized last week when Charlie Gibson (there he is again missing the whole point!) interviewed President Bush and neglected to bring up Scott Ritter's name when he asked Bush if he would have done anything different if he knew there were no WMD's in Iraq before invading. Bush got away Scott free again!!! Pun intended!

Then again, this past weekend when George Stephanopoulos was speaking with Condolezza Rice on his Sunday ABC show, This Week, he also brought up invading Iraq, and would she have thought twice if she knew there were no WMD's and she practically chewed his head off! From there he went to a clip of Rice playing the piano for the Queen of England. Nice segue George.

Neither man presented the question correctly to begin with, but even so, both men either forgot or did not do their homework sufficiently before coming on the air. But on both programs, when the same question was brought up by two supposedly well respected news men, both men failed big time to follow up with the obvious lobe question. Both men failed to do their jobs as respected news journalists. Both men were paid the big bucks for doing a very poor job.

And the consequences of that ineptitude, their incompetence or downright lack of courage, only helps add to the number of families in this country as well as in Iraq who still bury their dead loved ones because our press corp lack the most basic, essential skills to do their job.