What We Have Here is a Failure of Situational Awareness

Eugene Robinson writes in today's Washington Post:

In a way, I'd worry less if I thought the president were being intentionally duplicitous. But I worry that somehow he didn't fully take in the reality of the situation, let alone its gravity. His response was to sign all the right pieces of paper and then reassure others, and perhaps himself, that everything was under control when it should have been obvious that nothing was under control.

Robinson is referring to Katrina, but could just as easily be writing about Iraq.