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September 11, 2005

Can Bush "survive" Katrina ?

by Pierre Langlais

After the disaster in New Orleans, most of the French newspapers (as the US press) attacked George W. Bush for his late reaction (see the article Katrina is unfortunately opening America's eyes). Le Figaro is now asking how the American president is going to fight against these attacks.
In two articles published last week, the right wing daily is searching for reasons and acts in favor of Mr. Bush.
Monday 5th, Jean-Louis Turlin, its correspondant in New York, wrote a piece called "Bush is trying to fix the political damages". A "positive" point was actually at that time the death of William Rehnquist, head of the Suprem Court...

"The acceleration of the evacuations and the re-establishment - at least partial - of the order in New Orleans counterbalanced the images of desolation and anger on television screens. The death of [...] judge William Rehnquist disputed yesterday on newspapers' headlines the tragedy of Katrina... and it gave George W Bush another opportunity to appear as an "active" president." wrote Mr. Turlin.

On the 8th of Septembre, another article called "Katrina, the hunting for cullprits is open" start with this sentence: "Bush is playing his best card". This "lethal weapon" (if one uses the exact translation of the French expression "arme fatale") was actually... Dick Cheney, sent on the field, in Louisiana. And this article finished with a moderate critic from Philippe Gélie in Washington:

"Contrary to September 11, the hurricane did not create a huge union of the country behind its president. But, contrary to Iraq, George Bush might find easily a solution to this new problem."

A supposition that seems not that obvious today...

Posted September 11, 2005 04:19 AM

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