Bush, Polls and Blame

Posted on September 7, 2005

So, now that it's quite apparent to everyone that the response to Hurricane Katrina was an unmitigated disaster, who will the American public blame? Media Matters reports on a misleading poll that seems to indicate that no one really blames President Bush for the the situation.

In a September 7 article by staff writer Dan Balz, The Washington Post reported that Americans are "dividing along sharply partisan lines in their judgment" of President Bush's and the federal government's handling of Hurricane Katrina, which Balz called the "opposite" of the reaction of "national unity" Americans had to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But in concluding that assessments of the administration's performance were largely based on political affiliation, Balz relied on a flawed Post/ABC News poll and ignored other polling data suggesting that independents -- and possibly even Republicans -- are critical of Bush's response to the natural disaster.
Balz wrote that the September 2 Post/ABC News poll "illustrates the point vividly" that reactions to Bush's handling of Katrina divide along partisan lines because "[j]ust 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved." The poll also found that 48 percent of independents disapprove of Bush's response to Katrina, compared with 44 percent who approve. But as Media Matters for America has noted, the Post/ABC News poll is flawed because its sample size was small, producing an increased margin of error, and its results were also potentially skewed because it was taken on the Friday evening of a national holiday weekend, likely altering the demographics of its respondents.

It probably is too early to see how the Katrina response is going to play out politically. Right wingers are blaming Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Nagin. Moderates, Democrats and centrist Republicans seem to be blaming the incredibly incompetent head of FEMA, Michael Brown (or "Brownie" as President Bush calls him). At least one major newspaper has called for the firing of all top FEMA officials. Which is the very least that should happen.