Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image

He would no doubt like his administration to be defined by the image of him holding a bullhorn with the twin towers smouldering in the background, but the truth is that it is the image above that has come to define his Presidency.

The President of the most powerful country in the world flying past a city where thousands of his citizens, mostly poor and black, suffered in the most appalling conditions without any help from their Federal government.

He flew past.

His approval ratings have never rebounded from their post-hurricane plummet. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this month found that 51 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the way Mr. Bush had responded to the needs of hurricane victims, a figure statistically no different from last September, when 48 percent disapproved.

“This is a real black mark on his administration, and it’s going to stay with him for a long time,” said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “It will be in every textbook.”

“I might argue that this was the worst thing that’s happened to George Bush in the whole six years of his presidency,” Mr. Schumer said. “It was a perception-altering event. People had questioned his ideology. People had even questioned his intelligence. But before this, average people rarely questioned his competence or his caring.”

One year later, Democrats are not the only ones raising questions. In follow-up interviews to the Times/CBS News poll, Republicans and independents also expressed lingering doubts about Mr. Bush, using language suggesting that their memories of the storm and his handling of it remained fresh and deep.

“Bush did nothing for the people,” said one Republican, Joseph Ippolito, 75, a retired highway superintendent from Bayville, N.J. “Bush didn’t have the proper people in office to take care of Katrina. The whole administration is wacky — and I voted twice for him.”

Bush plans to be at the Gulf Coast on Monday and Tuesday to observe the anniversary of this dreadful event, but I doubt it will do much to undo the damage that this has done to his public image. He's in a no-win situation now. If he attends, he emphasises how long it took for him to get there a year ago. If he doesn't attend, he's callous.

Nor is the damage solely limited to President Bush, rather it extends towards Republicanism in general.

“Here was an opportunity for a new conversation on race and class and poverty, and they blew it,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, a Bush supporter who runs a coalition that represents mainly black churches. “It’s not even just President Bush. Here was an opportunity for Republicans and conservatives in general to make a moral and intellectual case for a positive policy agenda for the black poor, and they did not advance it.”

Indeed, many on the right, rather than criticise the government response, attacked those who had stayed behind, attempting to make what happened to them somehow their own fault. It's become an almost knee-jerk response from this administration and it's supporters, to instinctively attack anyone who offers any degree of criticism.

Unfortunately, during Katrina, they were attacking some of the poorest and most vulnerable of their fellow citizens.

It's a stain on conservatism that few of us will easily forget. Just like the picture at the top of this article, it's seared into the memory bank.

When thousands of their fellow citizens were dying on the streets of America, they didn't care. They thought it more important to defend their President's non-actions than to fight to save their fellow citizens.

It was Bush who chose to define the language of political discourse as "with us or against us". If I were black and poor in America, I would have to come to the conclusion that most Republicans, and certainly the administration of this President, are against me.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Katrina, anniversary, Bush, Republicans, conservative, conservatives