"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."
When I first heard this, I thought that this was the first time ever in Dubya's entire presidency that he ever took the blame for adminstration failures. I was hoping that he had sobered up and finally realized that he's actually in a position of responsibility and not at some frat house party. That alone was a pretty sobering thought.
But then I realized that the phrase "to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right" was custom made to re-surface later as his way to weasel out.
It's all a P.R. gambit. Act humble and take responsibility while your ratings are low, but leave yourself a loophole for when they want to love you again. If you recall, for a while there, Rumsfeld was in the habit for taking responsibility, too. There are no real negative consequences, and if people respect the responsibility-taker for takin' the blame, the only consequences are positive.
If Bush's ratings drop any lower, look for him to take responsibility for the Holocaust, the Whitewater scandal, and for shooting J. R.
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