In a recent article in Newsweek (excerpt posted below) top aides report that Bush was doomed with the American public after Katrina. But Bush handled Katrina the same way he did everything while President, displaying a total lack of care for people and a genuine disinterest in them and their situations. But unfortunately Bush is what passed as compassionate conservatism to the American people.
So Just as Sarah Palin ignited much of the conservative base in this last election. Bush had previously ignited that same base by displaying the same characteristics that the Republican conservatives find so appealing. A leader that appeals to this base, like Bush and Palin, must display an alarming lack of intellectual curiosity, understanding, and creativity to go with an extreme lack of empathy or compassion. Unfortunately what the conservative base, and ultimately a great many of the American people, find so appealing contributed to a terrible catastrophe on the Gulf Coast. It has also contributed to our present economic Katrina.
In the future, the American people, for their own protection, should demand leaders that have genuine feelings for people while also displaying an intellectual capacity.
Article Excerpt:
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....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.
