News Intelligence Analysis
From the
New York Times
September 4, 2005
As White House Anxiety Grows,
Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and ADAM NAGOURNEY
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 - Faced with one of the worst political crises
of his administration, President Bush abruptly overhauled his
September schedule on Saturday as the White House scrambled to
gain control of a situation that Republicans said threatened
to undermine Mr. Bush's second-term agenda and the party's long-term
ambitions.
In a sign of the mounting anxiety at the White House, Mr.
Bush made a rare Saturday appearance in the Rose Garden before
live television cameras to announce that he was dispatching additional
active-duty troops to the Gulf Coast. He struck a more somber
tone than he had at times on Friday during a daylong tour of
the disaster region, when he had joked at the airport in New
Orleans about the fun he had had in his younger days in Houston.
His demeanor on Saturday was similar to that of his most somber
speeches after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster
area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created
tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities,"
said Mr. Bush, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area.
"The result is that many of our citizens simply are not
getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that
is unacceptable."
The president was flanked by his high military and emergency
command: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
As Mr. Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove,
the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines,
as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Mr. Bush's
overseer of communications strategy. Their presence underscored
how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis
it faces.
"Where our response is not working, we'll make it right,"
Mr. Bush said, as Mr. Bartlett, with a script in his hand, followed
closely.
His speech came as analysts and some Republicans warned that
the White House's response to the crisis in New Orleans, which
has been widely seen as slow and ineffectual, could further undermine
Mr. Bush's authority at a time when he was already under fire,
endangering his Congressional agenda.
Mr. Chertoff said Saturday: "Not an hour goes by that
we do not spend a lot of time thinking about the people who are
actively suffering. The United States, as the president has said,
is going to move heaven and earth to rescue, feed, shelter"
victims of the storm.
The White House said Mr. Bush would return to Louisiana and
Mississippi on Monday, scrapping his plans for a Labor Day address
in Maryland. The rest of Mr. Bush's schedule next week was in
flux.
The White House also postponed a major visit to Washington
next week by President Hu Jintao of China. In a statement issued
on Saturday, the White House said both Mr. Hu and Mr. Bush had
agreed that "in the present circumstances, it was best not
to have" the meeting, which would have demanded much of
the president's attention over the next days on growing difficulties
between the United States and China over trade frictions, North
Korea's nuclear program and China's military buildup.
The last-minute overhaul of the president's plans reflected
what analysts and some Republicans said was a long-term threat
to Mr. Bush's presidency created by the perception that the White
House had failed to respond to the crisis. Several said the political
fallout over the hurricane could complicate a second-term agenda
that includes major changes to Social Security, the tax code
and the immigration system.
"This is very much going to divert the agenda,"
said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican with ties to the White
House. "Some of this is momentary. I think the Bush capital
will be rapidly replenished if they begin to respond here."
Donald P. Green, a professor of political science at Yale
University, said: "The possibility for very serious damage
to the administration exists. The unmistakable conclusion one
would draw from this was this was a massive administration failure."
And Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, urged Mr. Bush
to quickly propose a rebuilding plan for New Orleans and the
rest of the Gulf Coast, arguing that an ambitious gesture could
restore his power in Congress.
"If it's done right, it adds energy to the rest of his
agenda," Mr. Gingrich said. "If it's done wrong, it
swamps the rest of his agenda."
The silence of many prominent Democrats reflects their conclusion
that the president is on treacherous political ground and that
attacking him would permit the White House to dismiss the criticism
as partisan politics-as-usual, a senior Democratic aide said.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, disputed
the notion that Mr. Bush's long-term political viability was
endangered and said Saturday that he was confident the administration
would be able to push ahead successfully with its second-term
agenda. "There are a number of priorities, and we will address
all of them," he said.
For all the enormity of the destruction and the lingering
uncertainty about how many years it will take to "rebuild
the great city of New Orleans," as Mr. Bush said in his
remarks on Saturday, some Republicans suggested that the impact
could prove fleeting in this age of fast-moving events, and that
Mr. Bush's visit to the region on Friday had helped some in addressing
concerns about his response.
"Next Tuesday the Roberts hearings start, and that's
going to occupy a significant part of the daily coverage,"
said Richard N. Bond, a former Republican chairman, referring
to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge John G. Roberts
Jr.
But others said the damage could prove enduring, and they
warned that the inevitable battery of official investigations
into what went wrong could further erode support for the war
in Iraq if it turned out that the deployment of National Guard
units to Iraq had contributed to the slow response. They said
any thought that memories of New Orleans will fade would be checked
by gas prices that spiked as Louisiana refineries shut down,
particularly given that there was already evidence that rising
gas prices were hurting Mr. Bush's political standing.
Beyond that, some Republicans said the perception among some
blacks that the White House had been slow to respond because
so many victims were poor and African-American undercut what
had been one of the primary initiatives of the new Republican
chairman, Ken Mehlman: making an explicit appeal for support
among black voters, a constituency that has traditionally been
overwhelmingly Democratic.
"Given the racial component of this, and given the current
political environment, there certainly seems to be a high level
of risk to this story," said a Republican Party official,
who, citing the concern among party officials about the criticism,
would only discuss the question on the condition of not being
identified.
But Mr. Bush, reflecting concern within the White House about
the president's standing among blacks, notably said in his radio
address that "we have a responsibility to our brothers and
sisters all along the Gulf Coast, and we will not rest until
we get this right and the job is done."
Both Republicans and Democrats noted that the reaction to
the crisis has been nothing like what happened after the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when both parties joined in a bipartisan
show of unity in the face of a clear and identifiable outside
threat.
Hurricane Katrina struck at a time, they said, when Mr. Bush
was already in a weakened state, with his approval rating in
many national polls at the lowest level of his presidency and
his political capital in Washington diminishing.
The shifting dynamics on Capitol Hill was clear as Congress
returned to Washington to allocate billions of dollars for the
relief effort. Congressional leaders suggested that the White
House needed to reconsider its legislative agenda. "This
is not going to help Social Security," said Representative
Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois. "And it was already
on its last legs."
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip,
said it would be a mistake to abandon efforts to reduce the estate
tax, arguing that was precisely what the economy needed to grow.
But he said he thought the White House might reconsider what
it wanted this fall.
"I think the administration needs to be thinking about
what their agenda is for the fall," he said. "And I'm
sure there will be some re-evaluation."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting for this article.
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