[Mb-civic] President Struggles to Regain His Pre-Hurricane Swagger - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

President Struggles to Regain His Pre-Hurricane Swagger

By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 24, 2005; Page A01

COLORADO SPRINGS, Sept. 23 -- President Bush flew here ahead of 
Hurricane Rita on Friday to show command of a federal disaster response 
effort that even supporters acknowledge he fumbled three weeks ago.

The president said he wanted to see the emergency response system from 
the ground floor at U.S. Northern Command headquarters. "I need to 
understand how it works better," he told reporters before leaving 
Washington. But Bush was also embarking on a broader, and possibly more 
important, mission: restoring strength and confidence in his presidency.

A president who roamed across the national and world stages with an 
unshakable self-assurance that comforted Republicans and confounded 
critics since 2001 suddenly finds himself struggling to reclaim his 
swagger. Bush's standing with the public -- and within the Republican 
Party -- has been battered by a failed Social Security campaign, 
violence in Iraq, and most recently Hurricane Katrina. His approval 
ratings, 42 percent in the most recent Washington Post-ABC poll, have 
never been lower.

A president who normally thrives on tough talk and self-assurance finds 
himself at what aides privately describe as a low point in office, one 
that is changing the psychic and political aura of the White House, as 
well as its distinctive political approach.

In small, sometimes subtle but unmistakable ways, the president and top 
aides sound less certain, more conciliatory and willing to do something 
they avoided in the first term: admit mistakes. After bulling through 
crisis after crisis with a "bring 'em on" brashness, a more solemn Bush 
now has twice taken responsibility for the much-criticized response to 
Hurricane Katrina.

Aides who never betrayed self-doubt now talk in private of failures 
selling the American people on the Iraq war, the president's Social 
Security plan and his response to Hurricane Katrina. The president who 
once told the United Nations it would drift into irrelevancy if it did 
not back the invasion of Iraq last week praised the world body and said 
the world works better "when we act together." A White House team that 
operated on its terms since 2000 is reaching to outside experts for 
answers like never before.

"I think they are showing a greater willingness to look for new 
suggestions, new ideas, new approaches than at any time in the 
presidency," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). "I think 
they realize the larger system has failed: They are not where they want 
to be on Iraq; the first week after Katrina was an absolute failure."

David Gergen, who has advised Republican and Democratic presidents going 
back to the 1970s, said that "there is no question [Bush and his 
advisers] changed their tone. . . . That is a chastened White House 
talking."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092302182.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050924/4cafb9b1/attachment.htm