By Mark Silva Washington Bureau
As the anniversary of the worst enemy assault on American soil approaches and with victims reeling from what may be the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, President Bush's handling of the two could mark the high and low points of a presidency he has staked squarely on national security.
The indelible image of a president rallying a nation with a bullhorn atop the rubble of the World Trade Center after Sept. 11, 2001, provided Bush with lasting political power that carried him to re-election despite a frustrating economy at home and an increasingly unpopular war abroad.
But the images of despair flowing from the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the growing recriminations over the perceived mishandling of the federal response could haunt the president for the remainder of his term.
They could even alter Bush's legacy by denting one of the great sources of his political success: his image as a man of strength who leads in times of crisis, a decision-maker who gets things done and takes care of the country in its darkest hour.
"When you define yourself as a protector-in-chief, your accountability is higher," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. "On Sept. 11, you could reasonably say he hadn't had time to take charge, whereas at the beginning of your second term you really can't say it's someone else's responsibility."
Nearly a week after Bush declared that relief efforts on the Gulf Coast were "not acceptable," the White House late this week said Bush "continues to be not satisfied about where things are going."
Calls for speech
Adding to a sense of drift, critics are questioning why Bush has not delivered a prime-time speech or addressed a joint session of Congress. Instead, Bush will make his third visit to the storm-stricken region on Sunday and Monday, a two-day tour of Mississippi and Louisiana.
The president drew his own connection between the catastrophes of 2001 and 2005 when he assembled relatives of Sept. 11 victims Friday to award "9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor" honors that Congress has ordered for the relatives of 442 public safety workers killed in the terrorist attacks.
"We're still at the beginning of a huge effort," Bush said, comparing the courage of police and rescue workers on Sept. 11 with those in the aftermath of Katrina. "The tasks before us are enormous."
Yet four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, critics are saying the initial response to Hurricane Katrina suggests the nation may be no better prepared to cope with a disaster in a major urban center.
That preparedness is something Bush has spent the better part of his presidency attempting to achieve, committing billions of dollars, several government reorganizations and the creation of an entirely new federal agency.
"What we have failed to realize is the terrorists showed us on 9/11 that we are vulnerable," said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked for President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "And Katrina showed us here in late August and September that we are still a very vulnerable society -- and the most vulnerable part of the population ends up without the lifeboat."
The storm also may take its toll on Bush's agenda. The growing expense of a storm whose costs are starting to rival those of the war in Iraq could badly damage Bush's second-term plans.
Democrats say it will become impossible to justify further tax cuts in the context of a deficit-busting hurricane and flood recovery. And if the president's prospects for reform of Social Security and the nation's tax code weren't already dashed before the storm, they probably are now, say legislators and outside observers.
"Katrina pretty much stops his legislative agenda cold," said Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.
"If we ever needed more of a reason not to do Social Security reform, this is it, because of the cost required," added Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "It's going to be a question of priorities, a question of whether Republicans are going to want to stand on the Senate floor and support more tax cuts for the wealthy."
Congressional Republicans say they still plan to push ahead with important legislative agenda items. And less than two weeks after the storm, it could be too early to measure the impact of the recovery efforts on the president.
Early surveys
Two in three Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center said Bush could have done more to speed relief efforts, while 28 percent said he did all he could. Yet just a fraction of those surveyed in a Gallup Poll -- 13 percent -- blamed Bush for mishandling the relief effort and 18 percent blamed the federal government. Another 25 percent said local and state governments are to blame.
"The initial impressions, obviously, of how the government handled Katrina have not been positive, but I think the book is still out on how this thing is going to be perceived," said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who has campaigned for the Bush family.
"I thought that everybody would be blaming FEMA, the federal government." Newhouse added. "But there is a significant amount of blame to place on state and local government. That is probably going to increase as time goes on."
Some say the president has already begun to regain his footing, with two personal visits to storm-stricken regions and a third starting Sunday. He also has dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to be his eyes and ears on the ground.
The National Guard, for its part, has greatly expanded its presence in New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has plugged the levee breaches that flooded the city, and embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown is out as head of on-site relief efforts.
But some analysts say Bush should have found an opportunity by now to address the nation with a widely watched evening speech explaining what the government is doing, what Americans can do to help, and perhaps even what went wrong at first.
"That's certainly something we expect from the president," said David Lanoue, chairman of political science at the University of Alabama. "We expect some kind of unifying statement that is both reassuring and challenging to us, that assures us we are taking control of the situation but also challenges us to do something to help the people affected.
"George Bush has staked his reputation on the notion that his singular goal is to protect the American people -- from terrorism, from crisis or whatever -- that he has the strength and the vision and the leadership skills to do that," Lanoue said. "But there is a significant number of Americans right now who feel the crisis-manager president didn't act quickly enough, didn't act decisively enough, didn't put the right people in charge. If that view were to fester, that would be devastating to the rest of the president's term and his legacy."
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