Now let ’em argue that God’s on their side.

Historians will note many failures in the Bush presidency, obviously led by the invasion of Iraq. But nothing is more stereotypically Bush than the bungled Katrina response: incompetence writ large, cronies everywhere, complete cluelessness at the helm of every vessel, promises made and not kept, poisonous trailers, and the general impression just as Kanye said: that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I would add, or poor people of any color. But especially dark-skinned, and especially Democrats. N’awlins was doomed, or rather abandoned.

Of course God has sent hurricanes as messages to the GOP in the past, but the American disaster of Katrina wasn’t God’s fault, it was the Bush administration’s. We’ve had hurricanes before; Bush’s father no doubt remembers Andrew hitting Florida in 1992, to which he similarly responded without enthusiasm.

So is Gustav, currently on track to hit the Gulf Coast as a full-force hurricane next week, just as the Republicans convene in Minnesota, a condemnation?

Staging a convention during a major natural disaster would be a public relations challenge for either political party. But GOP officials say the burden could be especially heavy for their party, whose reputation was tarred by the Bush administration’s bungling of Katrina and its aftermath in 2005.

A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico could also cast unwelcome attention on the offshore oil rigs that McCain has championed as a solution to rising gasoline prices — they are now being evacuated in the face of the coming storm.

Or an opportunity?

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who said in a recent book that Hurricane Katrina left “an indelible stain” on the Bush presidency, said Bush should be making plans to cancel his speech.

“If it’s a major hurricane, I think that they certainly need to show they learned lessons from three years ago, both from a policy and perception standpoint,” McClellan said.

He also suggested that McCain could benefit politically from such a scenario: It would allow Bush to mount an effective GOP response to a disaster, while removing the unpopular president from the convention roster. “It could be a two-fer,” McClellan said.

I can totally see Bush’s Homeland Security team riding to the rescue. More likly this will just turn out to be an excuse to avoid the visual of Bush and McCain together. In partial compensation for which:

“This may be the October surprise in September,” said George W. Foresman, former undersecretary of preparedness for the Department of Homeland Security. “Public messaging and attention to the public affairs part of the response is going to get added attention.”

If it were a question of spending huge sums on deceptive advertising to a distracted audience, I might be concerned about the electoral ramifications. But a skeptical public will be watching the Department of Homeland Security’s response to a hurricane very closely. Closely enough that every success will emphasize the previous failure — in a non-election year.

[UPDATE, 6:08 PM ET:]

President Bush today declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and Texas, as former tropical storm Gustav strengthened to become a hurricane and continued on a collision course with the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The president’s declaration came three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi, overwhelming levees designed to protect New Orleans and inflicting record damage on the region.

Posted by Chuck Dupree at August 29, 2008 08:05 PM

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