Finger-Pointing Storm Erupts in Congress

WSJ.com -By BRODY MULLINS: "Congressional leaders plan to form a bipartisan House-Senate committee to investigate the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina. But there's nothing bipartisan about the political finger-pointing under way as Republicans and Democrats begin jockeying for electoral advantage.

Both sides know the stakes in public perceptions after a crisis are high. President Bush's performance following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks sent his approval ratings soaring, helped his party gain ground in the 2002 elections, and aided his own hard-fought victory for a second term.

But unlike the aftermath of 9/11, when America's enemies temporarily bound the two parties together, Katrina has generated near-immediate partisan combat. Democrats frustrated by Mr. Bush's successes sense the possibility of erosion in the president's public support, while Republicans hoping to retain their majorities in 2006 midterm contests seek to head that off by assigning blame for the slow recovery effort to Democratic state and local officials in Louisiana.

The result: Combative rhetoric and an absence of cooperation that was evident across Capitol Hill yesterday. Republican leaders met several times to plan ways to help Katrina victims get back on their feet -- without Democratic counterparts, who were busy denouncing Mr. Bush. When House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced the bipartisan investigation, no Democrat was on hand to take part.

The major party committees were especially pointed. The Democratic National Committee circulated critical newspaper editorials under the headline, "The Country Reacts to Bush Administration's Failed Response to Katrina." Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman, meanwhile, said Democratic leaders were "pointing fingers in a shameless effort to tear us apart."

"Politicians see this as a potentially defining event and they are worried how they are going to be seen," said political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg. "Politicians realize that public opinion could turn on this, just the way it turned on 9/11."

Republicans, as the party controlling both the executive and legislative branches in Washington, have the most at risk. A recent historical study reaching back nearly a century showed that governing parties suffered the political brunt of all manner of natural disasters, from New Jersey shark attacks of 1916 to the farm-state drought of 2000.

"Voters regularly punish governments for acts of God," concluded Princeton political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels. As long as the event or the response to it can persuasively be linked to the party in power, they added, "the electorate will take out its frustrations on the incumbent and vote for out-parties."

Democrats say Mr. Bush was inattentive to domestic needs while he focused on the Iraq war and took a long summer vacation. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called Mr. Bush and his administration "oblivious, in denial and dangerous," and called for the resignation of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The fact that high gas prices and struggles in Iraq saddled Mr. Bush with record-low approval ratings before Katrina has only intensified such attacks. Democrats have pressed for an investigation by an independent commission, like the outside panel that examined circumstances surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

"Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 sent a clear signal that we needed to be better prepared for major catastrophes on U.S. soil, the American people have a right to expect their government to perform better," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada wrote in a letter to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Mr. Reid said Congress's investigation should focus on such topics as "administration inaction to warning of catastrophic flooding" and "absence from Washington of the president and key officials."

That demand was the backdrop for the Republican call yesterday for a congressional investigation -- after relief efforts have been largely concluded. "What we don't want to do is pull every agency out [of New Orleans] to prepare for dozens of hearings," Mr. Hastert said.

As a result, Republicans say they won't immediately ask top officials at FEMA or the Homeland Security Department to testify about their response. "An investigation of the Republican administration by a Republican-controlled Congress is like having a pitcher call his own balls and strikes," Mr. Reid said.

At the same time, Republicans have begun pointing more directly toward Democratic officials in Louisiana for failing to prepare for and respond to Hurricane Katrina. "We don't need to sit here with our mouths taped shut, and not defend the president, when the governor of Louisiana did not ask for the National Guard and the mayor didn't order a mandatory evacuation" early enough, said Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia. Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin are both Democrats.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay also pointed toward state and local officials in Louisiana. "There is an understanding on Capitol Hill that Mississippi, which took the brunt of this, had a much better response than Louisiana," said DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden. Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour, is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

But the Republican counteroffensive hasn't always been organized. After Mr. Reid predicted that the federal response would cost as much as $150 billion, Mr. DeLay told reporters the Nevada Democrat was playing "political games" by making a prediction that high.

"It implies that you know what's going on," Mr. DeLay said. "There's no way that anyone knows."

A few hours later, Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said federal spending on the disaster could reach $200 billion."