Who's in Charge? Karl Rove!

"Some new measures are already taking shape. In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended some union-friendly rules that require federal contractors pay prevailing wages, moved to ease tariffs on Canadian lumber, and allowed more foreign sugar imports to calm rising sugar prices. Just yesterday, it waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region.

"Now, Republicans are working on legislation that would limit victims' right to sue, offer vouchers for displaced school children, lift some environment restrictions on new refineries and create tax-advantaged enterprise zones to maximize private-sector participation in recovery and reconstruction."

Lianne Hart and Janet Hook write in the Los Angeles Times: "White House aides said President Bush's address to the nation tonight would call for reconstructing the Gulf Coast using conservative blueprints and private-sector initiatives. . . .

" 'Bush has a very well defined vision of what government should do and how it should do it,' said Michael Franc, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization consulted by the White House. 'This is a moment to teach or explain to the American people how his values apply to this catastrophic situation.' "

Too Little, Too Late?

Ken Herman writes for Cox News Service that "some political communications experts say the speech is overdue for a president who now has to talk his way through a major crisis that could define his legacy."

Chris Matthews discussed the upcoming speech on MSNBC last night with Newwseek's Howard Fineman and NBC's David Gregory.

"He has to show that he is the captain of this ship," Fineman said.

Gregory drew a sharp contrast with Bush's bullhorn speech after 9/11. Back then, "he was part of how we all felt victimized. I think, in this case, he has been detached from the compassion. . . . There really is such difficulty in recovering from that. "

A Winner

John Dickerson yesterday published responses to a Slate contest from the previous day, that asked readers to say where Bush should hold his speech and why.

Long before the actual location leaked, Dickerson had picked the winner: former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers. She wrote: "He should speak from Jackson Square, with the St. Louis Cathedral in the background. It's one of the oldest sites in the city, the cathedral has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt twice, it's in the historic French Quarter, it's the spiritual and cultural center of the city. It's also on relatively high ground these days."

Bingo!

Brownie Speaks

David D. Kirkpatrick and Scott Shane write in the New York Times: "Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29, as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael D. Brown recalls, he placed frantic calls to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and to the office of the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.