Tomorrow's Weather: Blood, Frogs to Fall From Sky

O.k., that's the end of my snarkiness over President Bush taking responsibility for the sub-optimal response to Katrina. Look, few people are more cynical about Mr. Bush than am I, but he's right in this case, and he's doing the right thing. It's easy of course, to say a bunch of bad things about the guy--that there are many other failures that he's failed to own up to, that he should have learned to take responsibility for his actions long ago, that, given his record, we should conclude that this is another cynical and poll-related ploy, that taking responsibility won't bring back those who died as a result of his errors. This list is not a sneaky way of putting these criticisms on the table; it's just a way of acknowledging that I recognize them and feel their force.

But consider, just for a moment, that Mr. Bush may be an actual human being, and treat him like one. It's possible that he's learned some valuable lessons from Katrina. It's possible that this acceptance of responsibility--though not quite an apology, and not quite as obviously heartfelt as one might like--is sincere. Bush is an important man with an important problem--an inability to recognize his own weaknesses and acknowledge his mistakes. We should reward him for making progress on this front at least by not ridiculing him for it. If ordinary human compassion doesn't motivate you here, perhaps this will: a very efficient way to make him worse would be to ridicule him whenever he starts to get things right.

My good thoughts, for what they're worth, go out to the President today. Admitting that you were in part responsible for an error of this magnitude is not an easy thing to do, and I wonder how many of the people who will be ridiculing him today would be able to admit such an error themselves.