McCain: “History Will Judge [My] President” On Katrina

by Chris Edelson :: Filed Under Elections 2008 :: April 24th, 2008 @ 5:44 pm EST

Some people say that John McCain is a maverick, a different kind of Republican. We’ve seen this movie before when George W. Bush promised to be a “compassionate conservative.” He just didn’t tell us that torture could be compassionate.

McCain is doing quite a tightrope walk. The same John McCain who worked hard to get Bush elected and has accepted Bush’s endorsement is trying to distance himself from this president, his president.

In his latest sleight of hand, McCain declared that the response toÂ Katrina was “disgraceful” and that “history will judge this president.”

Umm, Sen. McCain, this is your president. You helped him get elected, unlike another Republican senator who refused even to vote for this failed president. You stood by his side (or sometimes became one with him). And this is your party, the party that spent a quarter century arguing against the idea that government can make life better for ordinary people. Katrina was not just Bush’s failure, it was the failure of the Republican laissez-faire argument, an argument that never precluded handouts for the wealthy, of course, and an argument that you stand by today.

McCain thinks the lesson of Katrina is that the president should have immediately visited the disaster site. It was too late by then. This disaster reflected a failure to prepare, Bush’s failure to prepare. The lesson Americans have drawn from Katrina is that President Bush and the Republican party are incompetent.

Americans would be well served to take Bush’s advice on one thing–we won’t get fooled again.