By: Daniel Moss

As the toxic floodwaters in New Orleans slowly recede – and, conversely, as the political stench surrounding the Bush Administration’s inept and excruciatingly slow response to the disaster intensifies – I can’t help but think of a gallon of milk.

During the 1992 presidential election campaign, President George Herbert Walker Bush was heavily criticized for not knowing the cost of a gallon of milk. Rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, the episode came to symbolize a President who was increasingly perceived to be out of touch with the average American voter. And Poppy Bush paid the electoral price for that perception.

Today, given the post-9/11 world that we live in, and with Osama Bin Laden still on the loose, our troops embroiled in a deadly war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the people of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama suffering immensely the last two weeks, skyrocketing gas prices, record budget deficits, and a loss of international respect and credibility, one might forgive George W. Bush if he doesn’t know the price of every grocery staple. After all, he has got a lot on his plate – much of which he placed there himself. But the same symbolism – of a President being out of touch with the population he purportedly leads – very much applies. Like father, like son. Except in 2005, the Administration’s obliviousness – and staggering indifference and ineptitude -- is at least partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds – and possibly thousands – of American citizens.

The incompetent response to the catastrophe in the Gulf Coast, of course, is only the latest manifestation of just how out of touch this President is. We all know now that the President heroically cut short his 5-week vacation by a couple of days to race back to Washington – by way of Arizona, California and Texas over three days – to belatedly deal with a beloved city that was drowning on his watch. But before he began this journey, it is instructive to remember what he was – and was not – in touch with at his ranch in Crawford.

Because the Presidency, after all, is hard work, Mr. Bush was in touch with many of his personal priorities while he was in Crawford --

napping;
Little League Games;
bike rides with (and without) Lance Armstrong;
lunches with Condoleezza Rice;
high-priced fundraisers;
brush clearing;
birthday cakes with John McCain;
guitars from country singers;
World War II commemorative events;
Medicare drug benefit PR events;
and breaking the record for presidential vacation days (well over 300) – with more than three years left to go in his Presidency.

On the other hand, the most well-rested President in American history did NOT have time to:

take 10 minutes out of his busy August schedule to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the grief-stricken mother of a dead soldier;

acknowledge that August was a particularly brutal month for our soldiers in Iraq and that the insurgency was most decidedly not in its “last throes,” as his esteemed vice president would have us believe;

directly address skyrocketing gas prices – at least until they began to affect his already plummeting approval ratings; and

belatedly identify and fire the person in his Administration who illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative for political purposes – harming national security in the process.

Of course, these skewed priorities are nothing new and have existed since his first inauguration. But the policy implications of these priorities have finally been brutally and publicly exposed in Katrina’s wake. President Bush’s agenda has largely consisted of enacting tax cut after tax cut after tax cut for the people who need it the least – while simultaneously recklessly misleading us into a $200 billion war (and counting) that we did not need to fight. The domestic price we have paid for the President’s pet projects? Neglect and a shortage of financial and human resources to address our needs at home. The repeated slashing of requested funding for flood prevention projects in New Orleans and the outsourcing of approximately one-third of Louisiana’s National Guard troops to Iraq (hence, making them unavailable for flood relief efforts) have perhaps garnered the most attention in the hurricane’s aftermath. However, these are but two of the most gratuitous examples of this neglect, and they are direct consequences of President Bush’s single-minded pursuit of his passions.

Still, with the contaminated flood waters still lapping at the homes and businesses in New Orleans (and with the clear call for government services to address the accompanying devastation), one might think that Republican congressional leaders would be willing to set aside a legislative agenda which caters to their base in favor of one which responds to the needs of the country as a whole. One would be wrong. While the Republican tax-cutting and domestic program-decimating agenda may have taken a hit from Katrina, it is not going away. On the contrary, at the first opportunity – after the spotlight of the hurricane media coverage dies down – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his brethren will be racing to repeal the estate tax, which almost exclusively benefits the uber-wealthy. Simultaneously, these self-described compassionate conservatives will seek to slash funding from Medicaid and other programs for the poor at a time when the need for those programs has never been more glaringly obvious.

In the face of this criticism, the President may claim that – like every other calamity and scandal that has occurred on his watch (and there have been many) – he can not be blamed for appearing to be out of touch. After all, it runs in the family. Speaking of the New Orleans evacuees, former First Lady Barbara Bush informed us that, "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles] is working very well for them." Similarly, in March, 2003, on Good Morning America, Mrs. Bush graced us with her thoughts about the upcoming war in Iraq: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

And so it is like mother, like son as well. “Family Values,” indeed.

As our current leader reminisces fondly about his partying days in New Orleans while nursing home residents are drowning – and about how nice it will be to hang out with Senator Lott on his new porch in Mississippi, the question is less about whether the President has got milk, and more about whether the President has got a conscience.Daniel Moss is a consultant based in Arlington, Virginia. He took a leave of absence in September 2004 to work as the regional field director in Pittsburgh for the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Daniel Moss is a consultant based in Arlington, Virginia. He took a leave of absence in September 2004 to work as the regional field director in Pittsburgh for the National Jewish Democratic Council.