Bush tries to repair image
2005-09-07 11:36
Washington - The Bush White House is known for its ability to remain in control of its message and image, sliding out of crises with barely a scratch. Not this time.
Despite day after day of appearances by President George W Bush aimed at undoing the political damage from a poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House has not been able to regain its footing, already shaken by the war in Iraq with an American death toll exceeding 1 880.
The administration struggled on Tuesday to deflect calls for an accounting of who was responsible for a hurricane response that even Bush acknowledged was inadequate. There were increasing calls for the resignation or firing of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I think it's clear we're in damage control now," said Norman Ornstein, political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.
It's a troubling position for Bush, already suffering the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
The mistakes have come one upon the other.
Even as Katrina bore down on the Gulf of Mexico coastline that Sunday night and early on Monday, August 28-29, and the National Hurricane Centre warned of growing danger, the White House didn't alter the president's plans to fly from his vacation on his Texas ranch to the West to promote a new health care benefit.
Once the president was in Washington, criticism intensified.
Even Monday's trip to the region was a redo, hurriedly arranged by the White House during the weekend after a lukewarm response to Bush's first in-person visit to the Gulf Coast last Friday.
Bush had raised eyebrows on his first trip by, among other things, picking Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, instead of the thousands of mostly poor and black storm victims, as an example of loss.
Later in Biloxi, Mississippi, Bush tried to comfort two stunned women wandering their neighbourhood clutching black plastic trash bags, looking in vain for something to salvage from the rubble of their home. He kept insisting they could find help at a Salvation Army centre down the street, even after another bystander had informed him it had been destroyed.
On Monday, he skipped the hardest-hit coastal areas entirely, choosing instead to visit Baton Rouge - a town about 130km northwest of New Orleans that sustained no damage.
White House spokesperson Dana Perino said the president avoided New Orleans to stay out of the way of search-and-rescue operations.
American University political scientist James Thurber said. "The vivid images that are coming across the television are really destroying his image as a leader."
- AP