Reply to "Beams to New Orleans"

and the accompanying article:

BUSH GIVES 'CANE VICTIMS BIG HUG AND A VOW: 'WE WILL MAKE IT RIGHT'

By DEBORAH ORIN

September 3, 2005 -- President Bush yesterday hugged refugees from Hurricane Katrina as he got a firsthand look at the human tragedy left by the storm and vowed that New Orleans and other stricken Gulf Coast cities "will rise again."

Bush, who rarely admits mistakes and has come under sharp attack for the government's handling of the crisis, said the first federal response in lawless, chaotic New Orleans was "not acceptable." He vowed: "Where it's not working right, we're going to make it right."

He sought to mix hope with candid recognition of how bad things are right now and predicted that the whole Gulf Coast will come back better than ever "” "and I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans."

Bush also joked that he has a special feeling for New Orleans because as a young man in Texas he would often go there "to enjoy myself "” occasionally too much."

The president's tour from Mobile, Ala., to Biloxi, Miss., and on to New Orleans came at a time when critics "” mostly Democrats but some Republicans as well "” charge that his team didn't do enough, fast enough to stop the suffering.

"If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

The challenge for the president was to restore confidence and hope, the way he did by going to Ground Zero three days after 9/11.

There was devastation everywhere that Bush went.

Two sisters wept as they came up to the president as he walked along a Biloxi street, which looked as if it had been flattened by bombs with a house in rubble and huge trees stripped of their branches.

"These are the only clothes that I have . . . My son needs clothes. I don't have anything," said Bronwynne Bassier, 23, clutching plastic trash bags in hopes that she and her sister Kim, 21, could salvage something, anything, from the remnants of her home.

The president put his arms around both women, hugged them close and gently kissed their foreheads.

"I understand. We're going to get you some help. Hang in there. Help is on the way," he said.

Bush sat with Patrick Wright on the doorstep of what used to be his parents' home with all the timbers collapsed around them like a pile of sticks. The president listened intently as Wright told him how his parents survived "” even though they were in the house as it was destroyed.

"It's worse than imaginable," Bush said. "I don't think anybody can be prepared for the vastness of this destruction. You can look at a picture, but until you sit on that doorstep of a house that used to be, or stand by the rubble, you just can't imagine it."

He vowed to end lawlessness in New Orleans, saying: "The people of this country expect there to be law and order, and we're going to work hard to get it. In order to make sure there's less violence, we've got to get food to people . . . We'll get on top of this situation."

Bush rejected suggestions that America can't cope with Katrina because too many resources were sent to Iraq, saying: "I just completely disagree."

"We've got a job to defend this country and the war on terror, and we've got a job to bring aid and comfort to the people of the Gulf Coast, and we'll do both," he said. "We've got plenty of resources to do both."

Bush gave a strong endorsement to Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown "” who's been taking a lot of flak over the federal response "” saying: "Browner, you're doing a heck of a job."

Bush said the results of the relief effort are "acceptable" in Mississippi, as opposed to New Orleans. He went out of his way to praise Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour for strong leadership and toughness on law and order.

Bush didn't offer the same kind of praise for the New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin "” who erupted in a tirade blaming federal officials Thursday "” or for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco when he toured their area.

But he pledged to work with them and stressed that the first $10.5 billion appropriated by Congress for the relief effort is just "a small down payment for the cost of this effort."

Bush also hailed the spirit of the people, recalling how he'd talked to a Mississippi man sitting in the rubble of the house, asked how he was doing. The man replied: "I'm doing fine. I'm alive and my mother is alive."

Also yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would fly to her native Alabama tomorrow to view the destruction there.

"I just hope I can be a little bit of an extension for a president who cares deeply about what's going on in the Gulf region but can't be everywhere," she said.

CONSOLER-IN-CHIEF: President Bush yesterday embraces victims Bronwynne (center) and Kim Bassier in Biloxi.