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A woman walks in the flooded streets of the 9th Ward of New Orleans A woman walks in the flooded streets of the 9th Ward of New Orleans By By Evan Thomas Newsweek Sept. Warm and hearty in public, Bush ca n be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known i n West Wing jargon, POTUS. his counse lor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the de licate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed. He had already decided to return t o Washington and hold a meeting of his top advisers on the following day , Wednesday. This would give them a day to get back from their vacations and their staffs to work up some ideas about what to do in the aftermat h of the storm. President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had b een bad; The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it m ight displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday nigh t Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orlea ns. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next mornin g on Air Force One. How this could be-how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the aver age American about the worst natural disaster in a century-is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. It is easy for presid ents to overreact to the noise around them. But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from th e occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. A fter five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street . Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richar d Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would h ave to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only inst itution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration f rom the president overriding all other authority.
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