Despite his apparent admiration for the scrappy President Truman, President George W. Bush and his administration can't seem to fathom the concept behind Truman's best known phrase: "The Buck Stops Here."
In the wake of the Katrina disaster, the Bush spin machine was all too happy to point fingers of blame at the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and the Democratic Governor of Louisiana. In recent weeks the Administration's incompetence in responding to Katrina has become so obvious that even this administration can no longer get away with just blaming local Democrats. Now we are being treated to the spectacle of former FEMA Director Michael Brown, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the White House staff all pointing fingers at each other. One hundred and thirty years ago the political cartoonist Thomas Nast illustrated this phenomena with his classic, "Who Stole the People's Money."
The President himself loves to play the anti-Truman game. Now that pictures of Jack Abramoff and the President are beginning to surface, we get to hear the White House reiterate that Dubya didn't really know Abramoff -- despite Abramoff's role as a major Bush fundraiser. Just like the President did not know Ken Lay as soon as the Enron scandal broke.
So where does the buck stop, Mr. President?
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