Then President Bush shouldn't have promised what he wasn't sure he could deliver. Or he shouldn't have made premature promises for political purposes.

Remember his "victory speech" from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln eight years ago today? That was an earlier example of the President listening to his political advisors too much and making public pronouncements that were either premature or that he couldn't deliver on.

Having expressed that criticism, Bush wasn't responsible for the slow initial response to Katrina.