A Civil Question

"His lack of historical perspective, his crusading religiousness, his Texas-style shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to complex problems - that is, all the shortcomings that were obvious from the beginning of his presidency - seem to be catching up with him now. It's one thing to be a decisive leader. It is quite another to be consistently making the wrong decisions."

Thinkprogress.org caught Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol talking about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina on Fox News Sunday: "I think it's become in people's minds an emblem of the administration that just isn't as serious about the competent execution of the functions of government as it should be. And even -- I'm struck talking to conservatives and Republicans -- they agree with the president on basic political philosophy, they agree with his basic policy agenda, but they are worried that they just don't seem to be able to execute as well as they should be."

And Robert D. Novak writes in his syndicated column: "President Bush's visit to Katrina-ravaged Louisiana Wednesday follows six months of bungling that threatens political catastrophe for the state's Republicans. He will boost his belated $4.2 billion plan finally to provide housing for people made homeless by the storm, but it may be too little, too late."

The Two Economies

John M. Berry asks in his Bloomberg column: "Why does the Bush administration get such little credit for what appear to be good economic times with solid growth and falling unemployment?

"Read the Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances and find out.

"It paints a picture of families whose inflation-adjusted incomes and net worth barely rose over the 2001 to 2004 period, a sharp contrast with large gains in both over the three prior years. That difference has underscored the feeling in many families of not getting ahead."

Just yesterday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asked the very same question in the New York Times (subscription required): "Why doesn't Mr. Bush get any economic respect? I think it's because most Americans sense, correctly, that he doesn't care about people like them. We're living in a time when many Americans are feeling economically insecure, but a tiny elite has been growing incredibly rich. And Mr. Bush's problem is that he identifies so totally with the lucky, wealthy few that in unscripted settings he can't manage even a few sentences of empathy with ordinary Americans. He doesn't feel your pain, and it shows."

In a few recent speeches, such as this one in Minnesota last month, Bush acknowledged what he called the "uncertainty" in the American workplace due to global competition. But that was about as sympathetic as he got. His only suggestion was that people not succumb to protectionism.

Just this past week, in India of all places, Bush added on what may be an equally unhelpful bit of advice: Go back to school.

Peter G. Gosselin writes in the Los Angeles Times: "When President Bush met with a group of business school students in the Indian city of Hyderabad last week, he came face to face with the very people whose first-rate educations, rising aspirations and readiness to work for a fraction of U.S. wages were tugging jobs overseas, away from even well-educated Americans.

"Bush used the occasion to offer some pointed advice to workers back home: Get more training. . . .

"But the president's assertion that the answer to foreign outsourcing is education, a mantra embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans, is being challenged by a growing body of research and analysis from economists and other scholars."