For Bush, likability is not enough
Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who is eyeing a run for president in 2008, called the federal rescue effort "an embarrassment."
Bush seemed at first to join the critics. On Friday morning, he called the Katrina response "not acceptable."
But later in the day, confronted by reporters, Bush amended his statement, saying that only the lack of National Guard troops in the area was "not acceptable."
Then, still later in the day, the president said he wasn't criticizing anybody.
However befuddled Bush seemed on Friday, his spin team settled down to a strategy it has used before with considerable success: Blame somebody else.
There are going to be congressional hearings? Fine, just make sure the hearings end up blaming the state of Louisiana, which has a Democratic governor, and the city of New Orleans, which has a Democratic mayor.
Slowed down by local incompetents, the spin will go, the president did his very best to straighten out the mess.
And, if the president needs to throw somebody from the sled to slow down the wolf pack, he can always throw out Michael Brown, the head of FEMA.
Brown, a political hack, was the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, Bush's political crony. That, apparently, was qualification enough to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Bush could help redeem himself with one grand gesture that would help many Americans: Bush could do to rapacious oil companies what John Kennedy did to greedy steel companies in 1962: Tell them they do not deserve enormous windfall profits and force them to lower prices.
I would not count on Bush doing this, however. Bush knows the pressure on him will lessen. After all, aid is finally flowing to the stricken area and eventually attention will turn to a new story.
Bush, a man of considerable personal charm, has been underestimated before, and he wants to leave a positive legacy.
So all he has to do in the next couple of years is rebuild the Gulf Coast, win the war in Iraq, and save Social Security.
Otherwise, he might give likability a bad name.
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