What's wrong with your president?

From
Obsession with Iraq at the cost of all other national priorities
Unwillingness to admit mistakes
Hostility to science
Embarrassing juvenile attitude
Indifference to the fates of the poorest members of society
Cronyism and unwillingness to fire anyone for incompetence
Tendency to spend way too much time on vacation
Inability to plan and execute large-scale operations effectively

If Hurricane Katrina ends up being the turning point when it becomes clear to a solid majority of the country that Bush has been a fundamentally incompetent leader, I suspect it will be because the Katrina crisis turned out expose all eight of these flaws. The hurricane itself may have swerved east and dropped down to a category 3 before it hit land, but where Bush's political reputation was concerned, it was the perfect storm.

Just a few quotes to illustrate my point:

Obsession with Iraq at the cost of all other national priorities

"...the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27 million for this fiscal year to pay for hurricane-protection projects around Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.)." -- the Chicago Tribune

Unwillingness to admit mistakes

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." -- President Bush, on Good Morning America

Hostility to science

"A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city." -- Scientific American, 2001

Embarrassing juvenile attitude

"'The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.' (Laughter)." - George W. Bush

Indifference to the fates of the poorest members of society

Andrew Sullivan on the Lott quote: "Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future 'fantastic' porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation."

Cronyism and unwillingness to fire anyone for incompetence

From Josh Marshall: "So, just to recap, Brown had no experience whatsoever in emergency management. He was fired from his last job for incompetence. He was hired because he was the new director's college roommate. And after the director -- who himself got the job because he was a political fixer for the president -- left, he became top dog. And President Bush said yesterday that he thinks Brown is "doing a helluva job'."

Tendency to spend way too much time on vacation

Bush is being criticized for not ending his vacation the second it became clear that the "near-miss" of first reports wasn't in fact, a near-miss at all. But just think about this for a second: we're talking about a scenario (Category 4-5 storm hits New Orleans) that experts have long predicted would result in a massive disaster that could easily produce ten times 9/11's loss of life. And by Saturday, all the forecasters were saying that this was the most likely path the storm was going to take. But somehow that wasn't enough to get Bush off the ranch. (Not to mention the rest of this slacker administration.)

Inability to plan and execute large-scale operations effectively

See all the above.