September 13, 2005
Why Katrina is Not Vietnam Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 02:50 PM EST Just as Vietnam was the first "living room" war, Katrina was the first gigantic disaster (in the class of Chicago, San Francisco, Galveston, etc.) to be televised. And just as Lyndon Johnson was criticized for things that had gone unremarked in past wars because they were now being broadcast in living color every evening, so too is George W. Bush's popularity suffering as the extremely messy aftermath of an overwhelming natural calamity is rehashed and updated 24 hours a day. Moreover, in contrast with previous disasters, Americans now seem to expect the President to solve all problems, preferably within 24 hours. That wasn't always the case. I've just been editing an article about California's Salton Sea, which was formed a century ago by a series of floods caused by unsuccessful attempts to control the Colorado River. At one point in 1906, after several dams in a row had burst, E. H. Harriman of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had taken over the irrigation project, appealed to President Roosevelt for help. The President replied, in effect: It's your problem, you fix it. (It should be noted that many fewer lives were at stake in the thinly populated Imperial Valley at that time.) The difference here is that while the Vietnam War dragged on for the remainder of LBJ's presidency and beyond, ultimately costing him his job, the acute phase of Katrina seems already to be drawing to a close. In addition, LBJ faced an enemy that may have understood American public opinion better than he did and that knew how to time its attacks for maximum political effect. Bush cannot lose his job, he does not face a malicious opponent (except in the political arena), and once the reconstruction gets going, he should be able to point to a steady string of successes. So the long-term outlook is for the disaster to do little lasting harm to the President's popularity.
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