For Bush, Next Moves Are Key to Rest of Term

Bush has enjoyed none of the rally-round sentiment that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, as Americans confronted not only tragedy and devastation but also a common purpose in retaliating against those who had attacked the country. Public anger after those attacks focused on Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Even in Iraq, there is an obvious enemy. Along the Gulf Coast, there is no common enemy for Bush to fight -- only a hurricane that has come and gone.

In this case, anger has been focused on Bush and his administration to a degree unprecedented in his presidency. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said in an ABC News interview that aired Sunday that she would consider punching the president and others for their response to what happened there. Local officials, some in tears, have angrily accused the administration of callousness and negligence.

The crisis in Louisiana also has rubbed raw relations between the administration and the African American community, with charges of racism leveled at the White House over the response to those stranded in New Orleans. Those charges threaten to trample the efforts Bush and the Republican National Committee have made recently to reach out to blacks. One sign of the problem was the appearance of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the administration's highest-ranking African American and an official whose portfolio does not normally include domestic problems, in her native Alabama yesterday, where she sought to rebut those charges as vigorously as she could.

One Democrat whose boss was in contact with the administration as problems mounted in Louisiana said it seemed clear that the White House had no on-the-ground network within the African American community that could have alerted the president to the deepening crisis in a more timely way.

Public opinion appears to have been shaped considerably by the partisan polarization that long has defined attitudes toward Bush. In part, Bush may be reaping some of the consequences of a governing style that has favored confrontation over conciliation, of appealing first and foremost to his conservative base rather than the country as a whole.

That could come into play again as Bush selects another nominee to the high court. Outside the White House, there was considerable discussion about whether Bush will seek a conservative to satisfy his base or a consensus candidate who would find widespread support across the political spectrum. "If his choice is seen as contentious, I think that can only further complicate his situation with the public," said Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center for the Press & the Public.

White House officials say that they are well prepared to select a successor to Rehnquist and that the president will not be influenced by political commentary. "He's going to make the decision on who he thinks is right for the court," Bartlett said, "not public opinion polls or what public sees as a strong or weak hand politically."

Bartlett said Bush has been dealt an unprecedented hand during his presidency, and that there will be plenty of time to debate what happened in the past week. But with an ongoing emergency along the Gulf Coast, he said, the administration will be focusing on relief and recovery. "The public expects us to deal with these," he said. "We're expected to deal with it, whatever comes our way."