Accountability is for Losers

Via Talking Points Memo, we see that President Bush will be leading the investigation into his own failure. Nice work, if you can get it. Josh Marshall points us to an AP article:

Buffeted by criticism over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said Tuesday he will oversee an investigation into what went wrong and why — in part to be sure the country could withstand more storms or attack.

Bush also announced he is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is doing all that it can.

"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," the president said after a meeting at the White House with his Cabinet on storm recovery efforts.

"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said. "We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm."

Gee, I can’t wait to see this report.

Now, I don't object to Bush investigating the errors of his own administration, and I certainly would encourage an honest attempt to improve our disaster response machinery. But this is the guy who gave the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet and Paul Bremer. So forgive my skepticism.

Moreover, an internal investigation should not take the place of, or interfere with, an independent, bi- or non-partisan investigation. I wonder how long it will be before we hear that "a thorough investigation uncovered no wrongdoing on the part of the Administration." That it was the President's investigation of himself won't matter to many of the talking heads. I'll also be interested to see how much blame gets apportioned to the state and local government in the President's "investigation."