It may have taken a DVD reel of recent news coverage and plummeting
poll numbers to get President Bush to admit he made a mistake during
his presidency, but a rare moment of accountability has come and with
it, the opportunity to turn over a new leaf on his
leadership.Yesterday, Bush acknowledged for the first time that he bore
final responsibility for his administration's bungled response to
Hurricane Katrina. True, his statement was highly conditional (he
actually said, "to the extent that the federal government didn't fully
do its job right, I take responsibility"); and true, he went on to
falsely suggest that criticism of the federal government's response
equates to criticism of the first responders. But for a president who
has spent nearly five years adamantly "resist[ing] publicly
acknowledging mistakes or shortcomings," Bush should be commended for
making clear that the buck stops, once and for all, at the Oval Office.
We hope the president won't stop with Katrina.

REAL ACCOUNTABILITY: Since President Bush is in the mood to begin
taking responsibility, there are a number of other issues for which he
should also be held accountable. For instance, when will he finally
accept responsibility for launching a war of choice based on flawed
intelligence against a country that was not an imminent threat to the
United States? Or the tripling of global terrorist attacks under his
watch? When will he stand accountable for the $1.40 increase in the
price of gas per gallon over the past four years, and the all-time high
trade deficit, now nearing $700 billion? And when will he tell ordinary
Americans that he is ultimately responsible for the 7 percent decrease
in the real value of the minimum wage, the 11 percent increase in
poverty, and the 6 million new uninsured Americans since he took
office, or the four straight years of declining median household
incomes?

RESPONSE APPARENTLY NOT THAT EXCEPTIONAL: When President Bush said he
would take responsibility for the federal response "to the extent [it]
didn't do its job right," what was he referring to? After all, most
administration officials seemed mostly pleased with the response.
Michael Chertoff claimed the federal government's efforts had been
"really exceptional." Vice President Dick Cheney agreed they were
"definitely very impressive." Even Michael Brown was praised. Bush
famously told "Brownie" he was "doing a heck of a job." On the day
Brown was removed from oversight of the Katrina response, Michael
Chertoff claimed he had "done everything he possibly could to
coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge." And
after he stepped down from FEMA, Brown admitted "the resignation was
his idea. He spoke on Saturday to White House chief of staff Andy Card,
who did not request his departure, according to Brown."

BLAME GAME OVER: President Bush's remarks yesterday stand in stark
contrast to his claims in the first days of the Katrina crisis. Then,
as administration officials faced increasingly difficult questions
about their response to the disaster, the White House rallied around a
single talking point: critics calling for accountability were merely
trying to "play the blame game." Now, with President Bush's statement,
the blame game is officially over. As Bush stated on the day of his
swearing in, "Encouraging responsibility is not a search for
scapegoats, it is a call to conscience." There was never a blame game
to begin with -- just a demand for accountability