Who Are You, And What Have You Done With Pres Bush?

AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

Josh gets it right,

I guess this is an example of that old saw, "If at first your efforts to blame everybody else don't succeed, take responsibility yourself".

Remember that question to Bush in one of the debates last year when he was asked to name a single mistake he had made his first term and he was unable to do so? He finally said that a mistake he made was trusting a few others who didn't do their jobs apparently referring to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

I guess when your poll numbers are crashing even Bush might try something really crazy like taking responsibility. After all, he is the responsibility president:

America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.

Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.

Or not.