Bush visits to address anger over response

During his trip to New Orleans on Friday, he joked about his partying days there.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- President Bush returned to the Gulf Coast on Monday as part of a White House effort to ease public anger over the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
"All levels of government are doing the best they can," the president told evacuees at a church shelter in Baton Rouge, La. "If it's not going right, we'll make it right."
Bush and his wife, Laura, visited Louisiana and Mississippi three days after his first up-close look at the stricken region. The hastily arranged return trip came amid mounting criticism of the president's leadership in the aftermath of the natural disaster.
"We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry," the New Orleans Times-Picayune said in an open letter to Bush in Sunday's edition. "Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame."
Ducked issue
Bush didn't directly address complaints about the government's response during his stops in Baton Rouge and Poplarville, Miss. Instead, he praised the work of private volunteers, reassured evacuees that they wouldn't be abandoned and expressed confidence in the region's ability to rebound.
Bush didn't venture into New Orleans, which he also skipped on his first visit. But after days of televised suffering by black people in the city, White House officials ensured that the television pictures of Bush's trip would include shots of the president with black survivors.
Still, there was some awkwardness to the tour. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who was given short notice of Bush's visit, kept her distance as she and the president worked the room. Blanco, a Democrat, has hired James Lee Witt, President Clinton's head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and an outspoken critic of the agency's recent performance, to advise her during the recovery.
Bush's somber, determined tone on Monday contrasted with the mixed messages on Friday's visit, when he joked that he sometimes enjoyed himself too much in New Orleans -- an apparent reference to his hard-drinking past. He also angered some hurricane survivors last week by telling Michael Brown, who's become a top target for criticism as the head of FEMA, that he was "doing a heck of a job."
"That's unbelievable," the Times-Picayune scolded in its holiday weekend letter to the president. The paper urged Bush to fire Brown and other top FEMA officials.