Not since he sat in a classroom four years ago this week and learned that the World Trade Center was burning has President Bush faced as critical a moment in his presidency as he does right now.
For the President, the response to Hurricane Katrina will define his second term and be a large factor in shaping his legacy. In times of despair and struggle, Americans put faith in their leaders. When lives are shattered for unexplainable reasons, they seek an example to follow.
This is the President’s moment, but it will not be easy. After September 11, the public embraced the new president and supported seeking retribution for the ghastly attacks. His approval numbers jumped through the roof, and many feel that the months that followed were the finest of his presidency.
But according to the latest Gallup poll, a majority of Americans disapprove of the way President Bush is doing his job, and nearly two thirds disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq.
Americans are less trusting of the administration, doubtful of its planning ability, and even more skeptical that the self-proclaimed “war president” can handle a crisis of this magnitude. This may be the President’s last chance to convince Americans he is not a mistake.
While Bush was on vacation for five weeks, his reconfigured armed forces were busy fighting. How effective they were is hard to measure because the war in Iraq is being fought primarily by reserve forces. National Guard troops who have been in Iraq for eight months or longer face the possibility of coming home to clean up the devastation on American soil.
CNN reported on one such unit, an Air National Guard group out of Mississippi who go home next week and have already been informed that they’ll be deployed to Louisiana to help clean up the wreckage as early as the end of this month.
While the cleanup begins, the lives of the people affected by Hurricane Katrina have been altered beyond recognition.
The images of people on rooftops appealing for help to rescue helicopters, already swollen with refugees, will never be forgotten. Those homes are likely washed away. The governor of Mississippi compared the scene in the Gulfport area to the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How do you coordinate efforts between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Guard, the Coast Guard, state and city governments, and the hundreds of non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross that are providing food and shelter to thousands of refugees?
How do people get prescription drugs? How do they reach loved ones who may or may not have made it through the storm and could be at refugee shelters in other states? How do seniors receive their social security checks, which are the only income many of them have?
The leadership of the President will determine the answer to some of those questions. If he appears to be working tirelessly to create an acceptable supply chain of information and care for the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina, his attitude will be infectious down the ranks. FEMA managers, DHS officials and National Guard commanders will carry the enthusiasm to help these people down the ranks to those performing even the most basic tasks.
President Bush often gets either all the blame or all the credit. Let’s hope he can help these people get their lives back in order. His presidency depends on it.
— Jason Zaler is a middler international affairs major.
