White House Blocks E-Mail Delivery

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "Disaster has been both the making and the undoing of President Bush.

"Bush's bearing after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- tough yet empathetic -- felt right to the public. He rode that support to a second term, despite questions about the economy and the war in Iraq.

"He was far less sure-footed when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. He stumbled through his initial appearances in the disaster zone, leaving the impression of a president who was distant from the immense suffering. His presidency -- like the region -- has never quite recovered from its faltering early reaction.

"When tragedy strikes, presidents are expected to be national consoler -- figures who affirm the grief even as they chart a path out of it. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't."

Ronald Brownstein writes in his Los Angeles Times opinion column: "Part of any president's job is helping the nation grieve, and President Bush, as he has before, assumed that responsibility gracefully with his appearance at Tuesday's memorial for the young people senselessly slaughtered the day before.

"But in the face of tragedy, the responsibility of political leaders is not just to look back in sorrow. Their job is to look forward toward practical steps that might reduce the risk of repeating the awful experience."

Brownstein writes that Washington should be asking "whether we are doing enough to diminish the overall risk of violence in our society. Bruce Reed, who helped coordinate President Clinton's response to the Columbine shootings as White House domestic policy advisor, strikes the right balance. 'It doesn't have to be about going back in the time machine with a policy that would have prevented this specific crisis,' Reed said Tuesday. 'It's taking the crisis to heart to see what we can do to stop future ones' . . .

"If we approached the Virginia shootings in the expansive spirit we summoned after 9/11, we would explore broadly. We would assess the availability of counseling for troubled young people. We would question Bush's decision to de-fund the Clinton program that subsidized the hiring of more local police -- especially since the nation's violent crime rate increased last year for the first time since 1991, according to FBI statistics. And, yes, we would reopen a discussion that both parties have silenced about access to guns."

Bush and the Three Anchors

The president and the first lady gave each of the three major broadcast network anchors five minutes apiece yesterday, after meeting with families.

Here's video of the Bushes talking to CBS's Katie Couric:

Bush: "I cried when they wanted to cry. I hugged when they wanted to hug. I, you know, I just, we just loved them as best as we could."

Here's video of their interview with NBC's Brian Williams: