The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Katrina and the other news of this Friday; a look at today's removal of Michael Brown from hurricane duty and other FEMA stories; a report from New Orleans on the levee situation; an Andrew Kohut summary of what the polls say about the public's hurricane reactions; the analysis of David Brooks and Tom Oliphant; and the hurricane thoughts of essayist Roger Rosenblatt. NEWS SUMMARY JIM LEHRER: The federal emergency director, Michael Brown, was relieved of Hurricane Katrina recovery duties today. He's been under intense criticism over the government's response to the storm. Brown will continue running his agency, FEMA. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen will take over the Gulf recovery effort. In Baton Rouge, the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, explained the change this way. MICHAEL CHERTOFF: We need to be prepared to deal effectively with the possibility of other hurricanes, as well as other disasters whether they be natural or man-made. Therefore, I have directed Mike Brown to return to administering FEMA nationally. REPORTER: Is this the first step in Mr. Brown's resignation? Can you answer that, Mr. Brown, please? MICHAEL CHERTOFF: Here are the ground rules. I'm going to answer the questions. I have explained what we're doing. I thought it was about as clear as I possibly could be in English as to what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. JIM LEHRER: Brown and his top lieutenants also faced questions today about their qualifications.The Washington Post reported several top officials at FEMA had little or no experience with disasters and Time Magazine said brown's resume exaggerated his credentials. Several top Democrats continued to demand he be fired, but Brown defended himself in an interview with the Associated Press. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, he said: "By the press, yes. By the president, no." In New Orleans today, there was word the city may not contain thousands of dead after all. That news came as the living continued to resist leaving. Betty Ann Bowser narrates our report of the day. BETTY ANN BOWSER: As the floodwaters in the New Orleans receded further, there was a glimmer of hope today. Authorities said far fewer bodies have been found than original estimates which projected 10,000 or more. COL. TERRY EBBERT (Ret.): I think that there is some encouragement in what we've found in the initial sweeps that some of the catastrophic death that some people predicted may not -- may not, in fact, have occurred. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The man in charge of the military's joint task force Katrina said the job of retrieving and identifying the dead has begun. The remaining bodies from the convention center were removed as the official death toll for the region climbed to over 300. LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE: It would be good to have pictures of people who are deceased shown on any media. BETTY ANN BOWSER: National Guardsmen on foot and in rescue boats wended their way through the murky waters of New Orleans again today, patrolling and trying to convince residents to come with them to safety. Some people vowed to stay in their homes. OLDER WOMAN: You're going to have to shoot me because I'm not going. BETTY ANN BOWSER: This, woman who brandished a gun and knife, was dragged to the ground by police who confiscated her weapons. But no one is being forced out yet. WOMAN: It should be up to me as an American. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The mandatory evacuation order means even people living in dry areas have to leave. Thad Allen, the new head of the relief effort in the region. VICE ADM. THAD ALLEN: All of New Orleans whether it is dry, wet or drying out is all connected together by the same infrastructure regarding natural gas, electricity, water and sewer. So just because an area doesn't have water, it doesn't mean that you can unilaterally reinstate those utilities and have it work. BETTY ANN BOWSER: While the police try to get people to leave, 2100 Louisiana National Guardsmen and women started coming home today after a year in Iraq; 50 of them have missing relatives. From Baghdad the commander of the 256 Brigade Combat Team said his Baton Rouge home was spared but hundreds of his troops would return to find their houses damaged or destroyed. BRIG. GEN. JOHN BASCILICA: It is just a terrible thing that they are going to come back from 18 months of sacrifice where they have risked their lives and have a disaster of this nature, don't have a home to come back to. BETTY ANN BOWSER: In Houston security was tight as evacuees lined up again to get debit cards from the Red Cross and FEMA. Households can qualify for up to $3,000 in immediate aid. And FEMA announced this astonishing figure: 450,000 families will need long-term housing. Many of those people are now scattered around the country thousands of miles away from home -- like these evacuees who arrived on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, this morning. JIM LEHRER: There were other signs of progress toward restoring essential functions in New Orleans. The city attorney said utilities hope to restore power to the central business district within seven days, and the Port of New Orleans said it aims to resume commercial operations by Wednesday. In addition, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu suggested fears of disease were easing. She told CNN: "The health risk might not be what we originally thought." President Bush plans to return to Mississippi and Louisiana this weekend. It will be his third trip to the Gulf region since the hurricane. White House officials said today he'll leave on Sunday after marking the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. NATO agreed today to use its ships and planes to rush European aid to the hurricane zone, and the U.N. said it would increase assistance. In Washington, Secretary of State Rice rejected claims the administration was too slow in accepting help. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It's not an easy process because disaster relief is difficult. But I -- I don't hear from my colleagues, and I'm sure that I would, that they somehow think that the United States is spurning their offers. Quite the opposite: I think people know that we are very grateful for the assistance and that we are using it. JIM LEHRER: Rice said other countries understand the need to match what is offered with what is needed. We'll have much more on the hurricane right after this News Summary. The storm named Ophelia moved away from Florida's coast today. Forecasters warned they still expect it to turn back toward land next week. The storm lost some of its power early today and grew back into a hurricane again. The Federal Base Closings Commission sent its report to the president today. It found the Defense Department overestimated savings from base closings by $30 billion, but it also accepted 86 percent of what the Department recommended. If the president accepts the report, it goes to Congress, which can accept or reject it but not change it. Egyptian President Mubarak was declared the winner today in the country's first contested presidential election. The election commission said he won a fifth term with more than 88 percent of the vote. It said that voter turnout was 23 percent. Energy prices fell today partly on news of slowing demand. In New York, futures for gasoline were down nearly 4 percent and crude oil futures dropped 41 cents to settle at just over $64 a barrel. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 82 points to close at 10,678. The NASDAQ rose nine points to close at 2,175. For the week, the Dow gained more than 2 percent; the NASDAQ 1.6 percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now, it's on to: Hurricane Katrina, day 12; the FEMA questions; fixing the levees; public opinion; Brooks and Oliphant; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - TROUBLED AGENCY JIM LEHRER: The FEMA story, today's changes and what came before. Jeffrey Brown begins. JEFFREY BROWN: Today's shake-up at the top of the Katrina relief effort comes amid intense scrutiny of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its director, Michael Brown. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post is one of the reporters looking into the record. Spencer, let's start with Michael Brown himself. There's been a lot of questions about his qualifications. Now on a number of the details of his resume. Tell us the latest. SPENCER HSU: Time Magazine reported this morning, Jeff, that apparently in his FEMA official biography where Brown listed himself as an assistant city manager in the town of Edmund, Oklahoma back in the 1970s that a former mayor said that a correct title might have been assistant to the city manager, that he was little more than a college student and an intern. At the same time it was separately reported by Newsday that in the past when a White House release about Brown's nomination said that he was a representative of an electrical contractor association in Washington, that, in fact, he was just a Colorado representative of the group and that he had only been there six months, not long enough, an official said, for the folks there to get to know his name. JEFFREY BROWN: Now, as we heard earlier in the program tonight, Spencer, Michael Chertoff did not want to make a connection between these details of the resume or the performance and today's change, correct? SPENCER HSU: That's absolutely true. Secretary Chertoff said this was his decision. He phrased it in terms of what he wanted from Mike Brown's successor. He praised, Brown saying that he did everything he could possibly do to help the victims and rally the federal government's response. And, in fact, there were really a chain of events dating back to last week at the height of the hurricane catastrophe ranging from, you know, Brown's admissions on national television that federal authorities were not aware of the situation at the New Orleans Convention Center as late as Wednesday or Thursday of the week after the storm, where he appeared to blame hurricane victims for not evacuating. Later when his background with Bush -- campaign manager and lack of experience in disaster management became clear, and finally on Monday he was relieved of command in New Orleans, as part of the relief effort, and then today he was relieved of command of all Katrina operations by that -- and replaced by that Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. JEFFREY BROWN: Now looking at what has been happening at FEMA as an agency over the last couple of years, the one of the things you wrote about in today's paper is what was referred to as a brain drain, loss of some key people with real experience. Tell us about that. SPENCER HSU: The tale really is not a secret in Washington but one that perhaps has not been closely scrutinized. Five of top eight FEMA officials had little experience -- had no experience, really, in emergency management prior to coming to the agency. The top three officials had connections to the Bush campaign or the Bush travel White House, two of the operational directors with disaster response responsibilities had backgrounds as a former lieutenant governor of Nebraska. Another man was an official with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. When you got to that next layer of the ten regional directors for FEMA, nine of ten were in acting capacities. Now the -- FEMA would say that that is because they went directly to career professionals and career professionals can't have a permanent position. But critics say this all goes to a lack of attention, a lack of emphasis and really a lack of seriousness or commitment to emergency preparedness within FEMA. JEFFREY BROWN: And the key institutional change, of course for FEMA over the last few years is that it was put under the Department of Homeland Security. Now what kind of change has that caused for the agency? SPENCER HSU: That's right. I mean, across the federal government right now you are seeing a demographic aging that is leading to retirement. But it was worsened at FEMA because after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003. FEMA was taken from an independent cabinet level agency folded into the department, and then it began losing clout. It began using funding; it began losing ability to make grants to state and local responders. In the latest reorganization that homeland security Michael Chertoff proposed this summer, he was going to take -- or on the table the proposal was to take all emergency preparedness functions away from the agency, consolidated elsewhere in the Department. A congressional study said that this was essentially dismantling the agency. So many of the professionals and career managers that handled Hurricane Floyd, that handled the World Trade Center crisis and Pentagon attacks on 9/11 have left the agency; they are working as consultants or state managers. Morale is very low. JEFFREY BROWN: And a change in focus from perhaps from these kinds of natural disasters more to terrorism? SPENCER HSU: That is exactly right. There are a couple of things going on there. As recently as -- two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit, state emergency managers met with Secretary Chertoff and his deputy, Michael Jackson and urged them to return a focus on to natural disasters, not just terrorisms and WMD that the Bush administration has been emphasizing. Their point is that natural disasters are known, proven quantities that are predictable. Where and when you can't say but you know they will happen. Another thing that is happening is within the department, again, FEMA losing a little bit of clout and a de-emphasis on emergency preparedness and a focus on sort of WMD hazards. JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post, thanks very much. SPENCER HSU: Thank you.JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner. MARGARET WARNER: So what does today's move mean for FEMA and its ability to deal with Katrina and future disasters? We get perspective from two people who recently worked on homeland security in the government. Clark Kent Ervin was the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department until last December. He issued a number of reports critical of the Department during that time. He is now at the Aspen Institute. And Richard Falkenrath served as deputy homeland security advisor to the president until mid 2004 now with the Brookings Institution. Welcome to you both. So, Clark Ervin, will this shift of putting someone else in charge down with Katrina and sending Mike Brown back to Washington to deal with future potential catastrophes, is that going to fix the problem? CLARK KENT ERVIN: Well, it is a half step in the right direction, it seems to me. I got to know Adm. Allen when I was at the Department of Homeland Security. I think he is highly competent, he is very decisive, he projects an image of command which I think is very important on the ground right now. So I think that is a step in the right direction. I question whether it makes sense to put Brown back in Washington to be in charge of overall FEMA efforts since obviously this kind of thing can and likely will happen again. I think the larger issue is whether there is leadership at the top of FEMA that has the competence that's necessary to do the planning and preparedness that is necessary to make sure this kind of response doesn't happen again. MARGARET WARNER: What do you think, Richard Falkenrath? RICHARD FALKENRATH: Well, I agree with Clark that Adm. Allen is one of the most competent officials, in the Department of Homeland Security, one of the public servants I had the pleasure of working with when I was in the government. So that is a step in the right direction. I think this position that Mike Brown was relieved of, the principal federal officer, was never intended to be director of the entire agency. It was always intended to be someone who would be on the scene dealing with all the state and local officials who were involved in the response. And it's clear that Mike Brown has some serious problems with the state and local officials in New Orleans and in that region. So from that perspective there is no question that this will improve the ability of the federal assets on the ground to deal with those agencies. MARGARET WARNER: So I guess the question is, meanwhile, when Secretary Chertoff says, well, I'm sending Mike Brown back to deal with future catastrophes, we have other storms that could be coming or heaven forbid he alluded to terrorist accident, should we feel safer? CLARK KENT ERVIN: I'm afraid that my answer to that is no. I'm sure, unfortunately, the terrorists were watching our response to this incident and they couldn't have been but emboldened, it seems to me, by the response, the chaotic response of the federal government to this. I think another point to underscore is there is very little difference, it seems to me, as to the kind of preparedness you need to have to be prepared whether it be attack or terrorist attack or natural disaster. You still need an evacuation plan or at least you could, depending on the nature of the terrorist attack. You need supplies of food, and water and medicine. So I think that that is my answer to that question. MARGARET WARNER: And what is your view of Mike Brown coming back to run FEMA, and talk a little bit, Richard Falkenrath, about how important you think the political background of himself and so many of the senior FEMA people now, the lack of emergency management experience, how new is that, how much difference did that make in this instance? RICHARD FALKENRATH: Well, I mean, this experience is clearly a terrible blow to Mike Brown and to his effectiveness as a FEMA director. MARGARET WARNER: You are talking about the Katrina experience. RICHARD FALKENRATH: Yes, and really his effectiveness now in Washington at that agency, I think, is greatly diminished. As he knows he serves at the pleasure of the president for the time being as our commissions say. And when that is gone, he will leave. Someone else will have to come on board. It is worth noting, though, that we had quite a number of disasters prior to Katrina, including when FEMA was in DHS where FEMA performed fine, with no apparent problem. There were no stories like this talking about how ineffective FEMA was. And I would say this country hasn't had to deal with a disaster on the magnitude of Katrina since at least Andrew. MARGARET WARNER: But do you think that this, I mean there was a big brouhaha today about his lack of experience, and not just his lack of experience but it was Spencer Hsu's story that so many of the top people there just had totally political backgrounds. I mean, on the other hand, FEMA has had a reputation at times for being fairly politicized. Did that make a difference in this Katrina situation? RICHARD FALKENRATH: I don't think it made a difference, frankly. I think even if we had had all career emergency managers in FEMA at the top positions, which it has never had by the way, I still think we would is have had a terrible devastation in the Southeast. Further, Mike Brown may have been completely inexperienced when he first arrived at the beginning of the administration when he was general counsel but he had a lot of on-the-job training, two and a half years before he became director and that not irrelevant. It something I think we need to bear in mind. MARGARET WARNER: Okay. What is your view of that? CLARK KENT ERVIN: I must say I disagree with that. I think this disaster shows that it is absolutely critical that in an agency like FEMA in a department like Homeland Security, it is critical even more so than other departments to have people at the top who've got long-term experience and expertise in dealing with a disaster of this kind of magnitude. And to allude to the second point, a number of people in Washington have suggested that the issue is really structural, the fact that FEMA is now in the Department of Homeland Security -- it is not as nimble as it was when it was an independent agency reporting to the president. I don't think it is a structural issue. I think you would have the very same response if FEMA were independent and reporting to the president if you had the same kind of leader in place at the top. So I think leadership, competence is absolutely key here. MARGARET WARNER: Richard Falkenrath, explain for people who don't understand how the pieces work together. I mean, it is pretty clear we had failures from most local levels to the most senior level and we don't know all the facts. But let's say the director of FEMA and FEMA had performed at optimum levels, what would they have done that we didn't see done leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of Katrina? RICHARD FALKENRATH: I think there is really only one thing they really could have done that would have made a huge difference, which would have been to persuade the mayor of New Orleans or the governor of Louisiana to order a mandatory evacuation sooner, and then to provide the assistance they needed to carry it out. What made this disaster different from all the others that we experienced in our history, and what sets it apart as a political phenomenon is the fact there were hundreds of thousands of people stranded in a flooded city, without food or water and with disorder in the streets. And that was because they weren't evacuated according to plan. The evacuation authority is vested in the governor and the mayor. And so what the -- if the federal government prior to landfall is guilty of anything, it guilty of a failure to persuade the local authorities to do the right thing, and to anticipate that they would be ineffective at doing it as the storm developed. MARGARET WARNER: Is that part of their role and responsibility, this pre-planning and getting the state and local officials ready? CLARK KENT ERVIN: Well, certainly the preplanning is key. Certainly, there is no question about that. I don't know how much persuading the state and local officials needed in order to order an evacuation. There is going to be obviously an investigation afterwards. We will determine exactly who did what when. But my sense of the situation is that the state and local didn't need persuading. As soon as it was clear that this was going to be a category five storm and that the levees might break, even before the levees did break, it seems to me that the evacuation plan should have been triggered. And before that there should have been a plan in place to shelter people and to provide adequate amounts of food and medical attention and other supplies that were necessary. Clearly that was not done. And yet this could easily have been anticipated, and indeed, was for many years by experts both in and outside of FEMA. MARGARET WARNER: That is the other FEMA responsibility, is it not, is the response to the disaster. For instance, in a terrorist attack you don't really have time to preplan. But now would you fault them there as well? RICHARD FALKENRATH: Well, yeah, there is no question the federal government fell short after the hurricane, when the floodwaters were in New Orleans, getting a response. MARGARET WARNER: What explains that? RICHARD FALKENRATH: It is really hard to explain. Here, I think it's important to say we don't know all the facts. MARGARET WARNER: No, we don't. RICHARD FALKENRATH: We don't know when, which assets were mobilized, what decisions were made and what timetable and that all needs to come out in an independent commission in my judgment. But there is no question that the American people expected a federal presence sooner in New Orleans. And it wasn't available. And that is a major, major failure. A couple hypotheses, Margaret -- and one is I think the federal government was assuming the state and local authorities could last longer than they did -- that their services could provide for the people for, you know, two, three days, and that was not the case. Second, I think they underestimated the cascading failure of the infrastructure systems down there around New Orleans, the roads, the energy, communications. And that impaired their ability to get in greatly. MARGARET WARNER: Do you have a theory? You studied the whole Department of Homeland Security up close. CLARK KENT ERVIN: Well, it seems to me at the Department level as a whole there has been a lack of attention to detail, a lack of focus on management. And I think we're seeing the consequences of that. It seems to me absolutely inexcusable that, frankly, both the secretary as well as the FEMA director said it wasn't until Thursday that they learned there were thousands of people stranded without food and water when all you had to do was turn on the television set to see that. So it seems to me a lack of attention to detail. And it is just inexcusable. It is inexplicable. I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know that there is one. MARGARET WARNER: Finally, really briefly, what do you make of the criticism that too much of FEMA's time has been preparing for terrorist attacks versus natural disasters, very briefly? RICHARD FALKENRATH: I frankly don't make much of it. I think that this government and that department and that agency need to do both. And FEMA had not spent a lot of time working on terrorism threats prior to 9/11. And they needed to do more. So they have to do both. The one cannot be at the exclusion of the other. They need to get better on both natural disasters and man-made disasters simultaneously. MARGARET WARNER: And you wrote a column saying that is why they need more money? CLARK KENT ERVIN: Right, and further I made the point that they are essentially the same thing. There may be a few things that are unique to a terrorism response but largely need the same kind of preparedness and planning irrespective of the provenance of the disaster. MARGARET WARNER: Clark Ervin, Richard Falkenrath, thank you both. RICHARD FALKENRATH: Thanks, Margaret. CLARK KENT ERVIN: Thank you, Margaret. MAN VS. NATURE JIM LEHRER: Now, back to battling the forces of nature in New Orleans as engineers struggle to repair the broken levees. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles has our science unit report. JEFFREY KAYE: The water that inundated New Orleans -- billions of gallons -- is now gushing into canals as pumps very gradually drain the city. Helicopters are ferrying sandbags to workers filling holes in broken levees. Construction crews are working around the clock to fix breaches and complete dikes. Three levees suffered serious damage. Two of the flood walls have been patched for now. The repairs include the construction of a 400-foot long road along the 17th Street Canal. The breaches occurred as surges, the walls of water pushed by the hurricane, simply overwhelmed the weakest parts of the system. But sealing the holes with sandbags, rocks and gravel is only a temporary patch. To find long-term solutions and prevent future flooding, scientists are studying hurricane behavior. MASHRIQUI, Louisiana State University: We're looking for a mark here - JEFFREY KAYE: Researchers from Louisiana State University came yesterday to Slidell, a storm-ravaged community just north of New Orleans. MASHRIQUI: If you look and stand up there and see the water mark, and you can feel how high the water was, the entire area was inundated up to, like, this high water. And with the force of five, six, or seven feet per second, that means it was just like a whoosh of water, and anybody standing in its path there is no chance of surviving. JEFFREY KAYE: Mashriqui-- he goes by one name-- was inspired to study hurricanes because of the damage they caused in his native Bangladesh. Paul Kemp is an expert on coastal restoration. PAUL KEMP: Okay, so we're at -- I am getting 5.35 feet. JEFFREY KAYE: They want to know exactly how high the floodwaters rose here so they can gather data to refine computer models that allow them to make predictions. PAUL KEMP: You can see it on the doors here and then inside the church, you know, it's all through the church. But we have about a half to an inch of mud over everything in here. JEFFREY KAYE: Local resident Bobbie Pichon provided eyewitness testimony. BOBBIE PICHON: It come in a half hour, it come in a little over six foot in a half hour. It just like they talk about the salami - it was just like that - it just whooshed. You could not even get to your cars or anything to get "em out, you know, but the trees was down. JEFFREY KAYE: Mashriqui wasn't taken by surprise. The week before last, as the hurricane approached, the computer model he helped develop contributed to an early warning system. MASHRIQUI: People had enough time to look at and read and find out where would be the impact area. JEFFREY KAYE: His computer models showed with uncanny accuracy just where the flooding would occur. The precision of their forecasts has convinced the scientists that their computer models will allow engineers to better design and construct effective levees. JEFFREY KAYE: Can the damage, though, be prevented? MASHRIQUI: Well, with the right structure it can be because we will now go back to the levee design, we will go back to the wall design; we will go back to the layout of the entire structure to find out where are the weaknesses that existed, and we already see some. JEFFREY BROWN: But levees should be just part of a long-term solution, contends Kemp. He says improving the wetlands, a complex system of bayous and marshes, would provide a first line of defense. PAUL KEMP: If we had more marsh out in front here, we might have less storm surge. That's one connection. JEFFREY KAYE: Why? PAUL KEMP: Well, because the storm surge basically loses its energy as it passes over ground and over the rough surface. JEFFREY KAYE: The marsh would have given it a place to go. PAUL KEMP: That's right. JEFFREY KAYE: These scientists are optimistic that smart engineering can prevent future floods, but Marvin Manahan of the Army Corps of Engineers isn't so sure. MARVIN MANAHAN: Mother Nature is going to take her toll; there is no real preventing the water. Mankind just can't hold back what Mother Nature throws at us. JEFFREY KAYE: Manahan's fatalistic view is shared by one of the legions of construction workers repairing levees. WORKER: I lost everything, man, everything. JEFFREY KAYE: What do you mean "everything?" WORKER: House, everything. JEFFREY KAYE: How does it make you feel fixing this right now? WORKER: It makes me feel good. I hope it lasts, you know. You don't want to ever go through this any more, you know. But who knows. You know, so, just putting it in the Lord's hands. JEFFREY KAYE: For now, the picture is bleak. With officials predicting more than a month to drain the city, much of New Orleans remains a wasteland of water, with scattered flames from natural gas leaks adding to the hellish panorama. FOCUS - PUBLIC OPINION JIM LEHRER: And now to Ray Suarez for a look at what public opinion polls show about Americans' reactions to Hurricane Katrina and its many aftermaths. RAY SUAREZ: National polls are showing a drop in public support not only for President Bush, but also highlighting strong disapproval of governments at all levels in their response to Hurricane Katrina. Here to discuss those numbers with us is Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. And Andy, let's start with the number from your pollsters. I think it's pretty consistent across all the major public opinion research organizations. The overall job approval for President Bush, 40 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove. What is significant about that number? ANDREW KOHUT: Two things, first, this is the lowest rating we have he gotten for bush since he's taken office. Now in part he's had a bad summer. Part of this is Iraq, but he's also slipped in response to Katrina. And in historic terms, President Clinton was at 58 percent, President Reagan was at 60 percent at a comparable time in their presidency. The only numbers that were lower than this, seven or eight months into or nine months into a second term was President Nixon who had a 34 as he was falling down the Watergate hole. But this is very bad for President Bush. RAY SUAREZ: Well, you mentioned that the numbers were already starting to soften because of Iraq but here comes the Katrina obsession, as the whole country turns its gaze towards New Orleans. And in a very interesting set of numbers: In getting relief efforts going quickly, the president did all he could, about one out of four responded said that. But two-thirds say he could have done more. ANDREW KOHUT: Quite an indictment. 67 percent was a negative opinion and 40 percent of Republicans who are so loyal to President Bush said yes he could have done more. There is a fair amount of Republican discontent with President Bush's performance here and even in his overall rating which is very, very unusual. The thing about President Bush is he has had a strong leadership image that was crafted in another crisis, Sept. 11. And that has been an integral part of the way the American public sees him. A year ago the CBS poll found 64 percent saying President Bush was a strong leader. When they did their poll this week, they only found 48 percent saying he is a strong leader. His personal image has really been badly affected because in the end, the buck does stop with him. The public is highly critical of the federal government, even more so than they are critical of state and local governments. And he's in charge. RAY SUAREZ: And it seems highly pessimistic given the other questions that you asked them, in a bad mood right now. ANDREW KOHUT: They are in a bad mood. I mean, this is, I don't want to be overdramatic but this is a shock to the American public. 58 percent of the people that we interviewed said they were depressed. Only in the surveys after 9/11 found a higher number. People said they were angry, 50 percent. 55 percent said they were shocked to use those very words in an ABC-Post poll. And the ABC-Post post poll also found 44 percent said we're embarrassed by this. This is a story that the public hasn't been able to walk away from -- 70 percent following very closely -- one of the four or five most closely followed stories in 20 years of surveying news interest. This is -- this is big news and a big deal to the American public. RAY SUAREZ: Well, pursuant to that high level of interest in the story as it has been unfolding over the last week or more, the whole country whether it has a connection or not has been watching New Orleans through television, radios, magazines, and has opinions about what went on there and what it meant for the people there. ANDREW KOHUT: Absolutely. And those opinions for the people are largely sympathetic. Most people, I think we have a slide showing that most people think that those people who were stranded there -- 62 percent -- they didn't -- they didn't want to stay. It is just that they could not get out. There is tremendous personal sympathy. We had 57 percent in the poll that we conducted this week saying they had already made a donation of money to help the victims of this flood -- 28 percent, another 28 percent saying they were going to do so. So the American public really cares about the people of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. RAY SUAREZ: And it showed an uncomfortable spotlight on to race and class, two things Americans often have des comfort in talking about. Talk about some of these numbers which are really amazingly diverse. ANDREW KOHUT: The lesson for -- the lessons were different for whites and blacks. And this slide shows that 66 percent of blacks said that if the victims of Katrina had been white, they would have been moved out -- they would have gotten out faster. 78 percent of the whites we interviewed said absolutely not -- it would have been the same, white or black. We found out 66 percent majority of African-Americans saying the lesson here is that racial discrimination is still a problem. When we asked that question of whites they largely said or a majority, 55 percent majority said no, it's not. White and blacks look at the implications, what happened on the ground very, very differently. RAY SUAREZ: Andrew Kohut, thanks for being with us. ANDREW KOHUT: You are welcome. FOCUS - BROOKS & OLIPHANT JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Brooks and Oliphant-- New York Times columnist David Brooks, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Mark Shields is off. Tom, what would you add to what Andy said about his numbers? TOM OLIPHANT: Well, up until now the three most important arrows in President Bush's quiver, have been essentially personal, a belief in his credibility, the sense that he is a decisive and strong leader, and then his handling of the war on terror. I think Andy showed dramatically how credibility and leadership have suffered not just in Katrina but, frankly, since the election. The war on terror is also interesting. I looked at some numbers this we can, kind of an amalgam of polls. In January, 66 percent of the American people thought we were winning the war on terror. Last week, that number was 34 percent with corresponding increases of people who think it is a draw or terrorists are winning, whether they are right or wrong. The result, therefore, is when you don't have strong leadership perhaps like Rudy Giuliani in New York after 9/11, if you do not grab a problem by its throat and show that you've taken charge of the response to it, you can receive a very harsh judgment from the public. And I think in Bush's case what is especially damaging is that there has been erosion ever since last November because of Iraq, because perhaps of the Social Security proposal, some weaknesses in the economy as they affect ordinary families. And erosion is much harder to erase than a sharp plunge. JIM LEHRER: And this was a sharp plunge. TOM OLIPHANT: This was about five points, I think, -- JIM LEHRER: Yeah, yeah - TOM OLIPHANT: -- on top of everything else. But if you look at the situation last November when he was re-elected and look at the situation today, you are looking at mirror images. JIM LEHRER: Not only the Bush numbers, David, but generally speaking what did you think of what Andy's numbers showed? DAVID BROOKS: Well, my first reaction was that there are a lot of people like me -- that is good, I guess, for the country, yes, oh yes -- people who support Bush generally but who are angry with him now. I actually think he may be able to come up again. I mean Presidents Reagan in "82/'83 was way low, 20s and 30s. Carter, Clinton went way up and down in the way this president hasn't. But the crucial question to me is something frankly I'm not quite clear sure about, do, -- you know we're in an emotional period, a passionate period and things are going to be moving around. Do, in two months, -- do we snap back to essentially the political structure of the past six years, really, which is this big hunk of Republicans, this big hunk of Democrats and very few people in the middle -- in other words, the polarization that we've seen - and if that is the case than the parties will continue to play their base -- or has something fundamentally reshaped and we really begin to see a center? I begin to think that something has been fundamentally reshaped. That is my instinct but so far you wouldn't say there is a lot of evidence for that. JIM LEHRER: David, you don't find any evidence of that in what Andy's turned up? DAVID BROOKS: Well, I mean, when I look at what has happened with Iraq and with this, what I see is people flaking off from Bush because of Iraq and because of this but not going over to the Democrats. The ratings for the Democrats has not risen. So they are sort of stuck there in the middle. JIM LEHRER: The readings for all, Andy said also, as well as Ray said in the introduction, the ratings for everybody are down -- not just Bush. DAVID BROOKS: And that is why I think it is a bit like the '70s when you saw a massive erosion of faith in institutions across all sorts of institutions, the media, the governments, the military, even. And I think we are seeing a little of that too. TOM OLIPHANT: You know -- to buttress David's point, the disapproval number on Congress right now is in the mid '60s, about ten points higher than the disapproval of Bush. But I would also point out that there were a couple of things that did not happen on Capitol Hill this week that may indicate some rethinking. For example, the Senate could not stomach taking up repeal of the estate tax this week given what had happened. There is a budget bill pending very soon in the House that has both tax cuts in it, and reductions in programs like Medicaid that are going to be central to the maintenance of the victim populations in the Gulf Coast. This may be one of those moments where the cost of reconstruction in the Gulf Coast may require, not force, but require at least a new discussion about our national priorities. JIM LEHRER: What about -- we had Sen. Collins and Lieberman on this program last night and they discussed this idea of how the American public is going to view how Congress is handling whether or not to have a joint committee to investigate this or not, the Democrats saying they are not going to participate. There is a story today that Congressman Davis, Republican, has his own committee. He's going to go ahead and have his own hearing. Sen. Collins, Sen. Lieberman are going to go ahead and have their committee. How do you think that is going to affect opinions about Congress? DAVID BROOKS: Hey, get out of nursery school, boys and girls. No, you have got a catastrophe like this and they are squabbling. I think that will be the reaction. You know, as we say, institutions got hit after hit. To me one of the most damaging things I've done this week is read through the New Orleans preparations for what was going on -- the plan that they set out where you had agency after agency specifically designing responses to this sort of event, and those responses on the first crush of reality were blown away. So how can you not lose faith in an institution, whether it is local government, federal government or Congress? That is happening. JIM LEHRER: What do you think about what Congress has done so far just as -- on the hurricane reaction? TOM OLIPHANT: I think it is very deceptive. And I would throw the administration in with Congress on this one. Incremental financing of a gigantic national need is always a bad idea. I think it has undermined support for our mission in Iraq, those of us who still believe there's a purpose there. You bleed out the truth in terms of what it really costs and what it really -- $10 billion last week for the hurricane, another $50 billion this week. JIM LEHRER: And who knows what it will be next week and the week after. TOM OLIPHANT: More people know about this than are saying. There is a lot of work under way in the budget office on the executive branch side. I watched a hearing on the Senate side this week where higher education officials from the region were able to site very specific estimates of what it will take to support their student bodies, get their institutions going. And people know, and as I said a second ago, whatever the number is, two hundred, three hundred billion dollars, who knows -- but the minute if somebody honestly put forward a program for reconstruction, it would require this country to re-examine decisions it's been making. JIM LEHRER: In other words, just go ahead and say how big it is. Just go say right now how big it is. DAVID BROOKS: Right now, you know, to me just the underlying thing that happened because of Katrina, is that the disaster has shown us how much we need government. It's also shown us how ineffective government can be. And we're -- JIM LEHRER: That is a bad combination. DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, it is. JIM LEHRER: Speaking of government, et cetera, do you have any thoughts about bringing Michael Brown back to Washington to run FEMA? DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, I guess they found somebody from the thoroughbred association they could put in his place. No, I -- he was just as ineffective and hapless. I begin to get a little cautious because of the piling on. There is sort of a jackal-like mentality - the poor guy -- he shouldn't have been in the job. He should get out. But there is sort of a going after his past, what he promised to do in college, you know, okay fine, he's gone. To me the crucial thing again and I mentioned this the other day, people in New Orleans, and Louisiana and the federal government were for ten years holding commissions, conferences working groups on how to prepare for this. These people were experts. Forget Michael Brown. These people -- this was the most anticipated natural disaster in American history. And we still had a failure. So you didn't have to be a tyro or a beginner to fail. A lot of people failed who knew a lot about what they should have been doing. And maybe it is just the nature of government. Maybe it is the nature of natural disasters but people with experience didn't do great either. TOM OLIPHANT: The first rule I believe of columnists should be kick them when they are up, not down. And in this case, I think what David just said is particularly relevant because we are still reporting this afternoon on precisely what the lines of authority between Washington and Thad Allen of the Coast Guard down there are. It's not quite clear who really is in charge. The neglect, the shame and outrage of last week has been replaced this week instead not with clarity and decisiveness, but with confusion. And so it isn't clear to me at all that Michael Brown's recall back to Washington, I mean my God, he wasn't visible last weekend when Bush went down there the second time -- it's not clear at all what has changed. And until that is clear, I have a little example that I have been following all week. Gov. Blanco in Louisiana has requested on an emergency basis additional radio communications devices and portable generators. Last I checked still hasn't got them. JIM LEHRER: Is there any reason, anybody -- does anybody have a reason? TOM OLIPHANT: The last time I checked FEMA, this thing, had not located the request. JIM LEHRER: I see. Hadn't located the request much less the -- TOM OLIPHANT: No. DAVID BROOKS: You've got bureaucracy, you know, it is just not fast. The other thing you've got is democracy. We have in a system of power, separation of powers. We diffuse authority; that is why we don't have a dictator. The downside of that is you get fights over the Army Corps of Engineers, what they should be spending their money on; you get fights over the 82nd Airborne versus the National Guard, who should going in there. You get diffusion of power and that makes a fast response impossible as well. JIM LEHRER: I thought a dozen years ago the essence of the reform in the government was that there was an agency created and given the authority to coordinate everybody else during an emergency. And that reform was allowed to lapse and at a minimum -- JIM LEHRER: And that was FEMA. TOM OLIPHANT: That's right. And at a minimum, I would think that we have seen enough evidence for a reconstitution of that clear authority. JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile, I can't imagine how much time we have devoted to a discussion of the oncoming confirmation hearings of the chief justice of the Supreme Court if Katrina had not come along. Those hearings do begin on Monday. They begin at noon. We are going to be broadcasting them live on most PBS stations, the two of you are going to be there along with Marcia Coyle for commentary and whatever. Do either of you have any reason to believe there is going to be -- is there any -- are there any fireworks coming -- anything that we should be looking for that we don't know about? DAVID BROOKS: This not the way to build ratings. But no, I don't think so. I think the chance of him getting confirmed went from 95 percent to 99 percent, because, a, there is just no public energy for a big fight about that because Katrina is so dominant. Secondly, because there are now two openings on the court I think the Democrats are going to shift their focus on the other opening. JIM LEHRER: Let Roberts go, do you agree? TOM OLIPHANT: Oh, no, I think the suspense is going to -- (laughter) JIM LEHRER: Thank you, Tom. But you're not able - TOM OLIPHANT: There will be one fight at least for the record, trying to fill in the blanks of his service as a policy-making official in the Solicitor General's Office 12 years ago. The Democrats will probably lose most of that. But I think they will make their case that this guy is the proper replacement for Rehnquist, maybe not the right one for O'Connor. JIM LEHRER: And that is where the game is going to go? TOM OLIPHANT: Yes, sir. JIM LEHRER: And all the energy is going to go on. But that is going to be really exciting watching that next week right, Tom? TOM OLIPHANT: The suspense here will be even greater (laughing). JIM LEHRER: Absolutely. Well, I'll see you next week, and thank you both very much for tonight. ESSAY - THE TRIAL JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, one more view of the hurricane disaster. It comes from essayist Roger Rosenblatt. ROGER ROSENBLATT: I don't know much about public policy as a study or activity. I just always assumed that it had something to do with the public. That assumption was challenged by events relating to Hurricane Katrina which seemed to separate public from policy, and leave the former in the lurch. Yet with Katrina there were public policy issues and consequences everywhere one looked. Issues connected to levee construction and maintenance -- Superdome construction and maintenance -- Road construction, city construction; avenues of escape, vehicles of escape, vehicles of rescue; questions of mandatory versus voluntary evacuation; law and order, including numbers of police and National Guard; health issues concerning bodies, polluted waters, lack of water, food and power; charitable giving, food and water distribution, communications; politics itself, certainly; the authority of different agencies, local, state and federal; and perhaps most evidently care for the elderly, the ill and the poor. Did I mention death? It is the custom of officials and commentators to regard these issues and those that ramify from them as abstraction: Policy over public, public over person. But the person, the individual for whom all policies supposedly are set in motion still manages to stand out. One of the first noticeable people during Katrina was Harty Jackson of Biloxi who lost his wife, Tonette, in the floodwaters. Pictured on television he stood before the world helpless and in despair as he described that terrible moment. HARDY JACKSON: I hold her hand as tight as I could. And she told me, you can't hold me. She said take care of the kids and the grandkids. ROGER ROSENBLATT: Today Mr. Jackson returns to the nothing left of his home and of his wife. SPOKESMAN: Any sign of life. ROGER ROSENBLATT: Where was Harty Jackson, one wonders, when the people who were attending to all the public policy issues were making their plans, for when the abstractions have been reassessed, only Mr. Jackson matters. ROGER ROSENBLATT: "Kafka's Trial" begins with a man who came before the massive door representing the law. But a sentinel keeps him out, for years. Near death the man asks, "Who in this world is allowed to enter and come before the law?" The sentinel says, "Why it's you. The law was made only for you." Schools of public policy have burgeoned in recent years. If I were teaching in such a school, I would bring Harty Jackson to class if he would consent to come. And I would ask him to tell the students his story again. Harty Jackson, the only person for whom public policy should be made, the poorest, the weakest, the most vulnerable and therefore, the most valuable -- I would ask the class to look hard at Mr. Jackson, to remember Tonette and then go to work. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: The federal emergency director, Michael Brown, was relieved of Hurricane Katrina recovery duties. And officials in New Orleans said there may not be thousands of dead after all. JIM LEHRER: And, once again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are four more. JIM LEHRER: Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online with our special PBS coverage of the Roberts hearings beginning at 12:00 Noon Eastern Time Monday, and then again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.