Political peril hits Team Bush

Katrina, Iraq and sagging poll numbers have the president facing challenges that may erode his support

BY CRAIG GORDON | WASHINGTON BUREAU

September 6, 2005

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush once had hoped to use this week to remind Americans of his handling of a national catastrophe. Now he'll spend it trying to make people forget.

White House officials had been looking to Sunday's fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to change the subject from Iraq and other bad news. Instead, a sort of second-term 9/11 landed on the Gulf Coast, and Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina has created a moment of political peril that threatens to erode his already-weakened standing among voters and reshape his legislative agenda.

"It really is a presidential crossroads. The administration obviously got off to a sloppy, chaotic and rather tone-deaf start. They're in a catch-up process or damage control. Nevertheless there are just so many loose ends, the whole thing could just lead him to become more and more weakened," said presidential scholar Fred Greenstein of Princeton University.

Under fire for what critics say was a tardy and poorly coordinated federal response, Bush returned to hard-hit areas for the second time in three days yesterday, using a series of meetings with victims and local leaders in the hopes of regaining momentum after a Friday visit that some critics said fell short.

Katrina hit as the president already was suffering his lowest approval ratings yet over the war in Iraq and over high gasoline prices - one problem that Katrina actually has exacerbated.

Bush showed early signs yesterday of finding firmer footing, starting with the announcement that he wanted Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts to take the late William H. Rehnquist's seat as chief justice - a swift stroke that also cleared aside one issue that could have distracted from the focus on post-Katrina recovery.

On the ground, Bush struck a compassionate note, telling emergency workers simply, "I understand how long it's going to take, and we're with you."

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll showed voters 2-1 criticizing federal preparedness for Katrina, but split evenly on Bush's response. Three-fourths of voters gave low marks to state and local officials - something White House allies believe will deflect some of the blame as well.

But the White House is mindful of other political pitfalls. Bush appeared yesterday with African-American minister and longtime friend T.D. Jakes of Dallas - an unspoken counterpoint to criticism that federal response had shortchanged minority storm victims.

Fresh pictures of those who died outside the reach of rescue workers are going to be "very ugly," one senior administration official said yesterday, and congressional investigations also will probe the federal response.

Images of 25,000 evacuees at the New Orleans convention center were the "tipping point" for Bush, this official said. On Friday, "he walked into the Situation Room and wanted to make it clear to everybody, we can't be satisfied with the results," the official said - words Bush echoed in public a short time later.

One problem for Bush is that much of the country had been outraged by those images for two days, and those are the very images Bush now is seeking to counteract, with his own visits and images of military relief convoys streaming in.

But beyond the images, Bush also must contend with the new fiscal realities wrought by Katrina, for which $10.5 billion in aid is merely a down payment in a budget already stretched by Iraq.

Republicans have been gearing up with an ambitious GOP wish-list for this fall, including Bush's centerpiece item, a Social Security overhaul, as well as extending capital gain and dividends tax cuts and eliminating the inheritance tax.

Democrats already have urged Republicans to drop the estate-tax repeal, and several outside analysts said Bush would face political pressure not to approve a legislative package that appears designed to favor the wealthy. "Whether a millionaire gets to pass his wealth on to his heirs ... doesn't play well in the face of black people floating face down dead in the water," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political science professor.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he would delay a vote scheduled for this week on repealing the estate tax and didn't say when it would be rescheduled.

Bush allies on the Hill showed little sign of backing down, with one Senate staffer saying yesterday, "I don't know that anything has been taken off the table. Katrina's on the front burner, but the stove has other burners."

Greenstein and Buchanan recalled that Bush started slowly after Sept. 11, coming under fire for not returning more quickly to Washington, only to recover three days later by creating an iconic image of standing on the still-smoldering rubble of the Twin Towers. Both believe he could recover the way he did then, though Buchanan said matching that "megaphone moment" will be tough. "It is possible for him to get back where he was" in public standing before Katrina, Buchanan said. "But where he was, was not all that great."