President admits four years of failure

I can't believe it:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Bush said he wants to know what went right and what went wrong so that he can determine whether the United States was prepared for another storm, or an attack.

Predictably Bush went to the 9/11 well there, hoping that some of that magic could rub off on him and boost his ratings. But, if anything, his weak response to the more recent tragedy will tarnish memories of what he did post attack.

I still argue that Bush's main problem responding to Katrina is that there was no one to attack. He can't demonize the weather, or declare that we are going to wipe out all hurricanes before they get us. He was left in a position where leadership would spoke louder than bravado, and it turns out he had nothing to say.

Bush admitting failure is an interesting first step on his road to recovery. Maybe he will realize the demonization of those who oppose him and the "swiftboating" of those who stand up to him is wrong as well. I'm not holding my breath, however.

*UPDATE* E.J. Dionne agrees. He calls it the "End of the Bush Era":

If Bush had understood that his central task was to forge national unity, as he seemed to shortly after Sept. 11, the country would never have become so polarized. Instead, Bush put patriotism to the service of narrowly ideological policies and an extreme partisanship. He pushed for more tax cuts for his wealthiest supporters and shamelessly used relatively modest details in the bill creating a Department of Homeland Security as partisan cudgels in the 2002 elections.

He invoked our national anger over terrorism to win support for a war in Iraq. But he failed to pay heed to those who warned that the United States would need many more troops and careful planning to see the job through. The president assumed things would turn out fine, on the basis of wildly optimistic assumptions. Careful policymaking and thinking through potential flaws in your approach are not his administration's strong suits.

(snip)

The source of Bush's political success was his claim that he could protect Americans. Leadership, strength and security were Bush's calling cards. Over the past two weeks, they were lost in the surging waters of New Orleans.