From Gloucester, Massachusetts, there seems no better phrase than a perfect storm to describe the political weather brewing for President Bush. This morning’s New York Times has a damning editorial and a sobering front-page story by David Sanger about the difficulties facing the White House. That is only the beginning of what will now be an extended period of national soul-searching about how we tragically let down the people of New Orleans in August 2005.

Disasters are nearly always bad for presidents, whether considered their fault or not. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 added to the sense that George H.W. Bush was distracted by foreign policy. The near-meltdown at Three Mile Island contributed in some intangible way to the malaise the United States felt under Jimmy Carter. And even before the full extent of Watergate corruption became known to the world, the fuel crisis of the early 70s added to the feeling that Richard Nixon’s America was running out of gas. All of these crises will pale before the disaster at hand, which combines elements of all three: complete destruction plus existential terror plus a sense that the energy we depend on will no longer be there in the future.

But on top of that, there is mounting evidence, both circumstantial and real, that this disaster can be laid at the doorstep of the Bush White House. A feeling hangs heavy in the air – like the quiet before a hurricane – that the catastrophe symbolizes a presidency profoundly out of touch with reality. It’s not just the basic fact, visible on all TV screens, that the victims of this tragedy are poor and black – the precise demographic that has fared the worst under George W. Bush, ever since its votes were undercounted in Florida. Or that President Bush was on one of his long vacations when the storm hit. Or that he did nothing the first full day of the tragedy.

It is more than that. The information is still coming in haphazardly, but it is becoming clear that New Orleans was the victim of extraordinary mismanagement by an administration more concerned about war in Iraq than desolation in Louisiana. A powerful Salon piece by Sidney Blumenthal, filed yesterday at 5 pm, lays out the case in black and white. The city’s flood control funding had been reduced by 44% since 2001. Weakening wetlands protections to favor developers also made the city far more vulnerable. Congress left town before dealing with any of New Orleans’s problems, even though a hurricane in Louisiana had been declared one of the three most significant possible disasters in 2001. The now submerged New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation.”

The Salon piece doesn’t even go into a question that also seems to be on people’s minds – why has the federal government been so slow and ineffectual in its response? An obvious thought is that the National Guard and Army – exactly whom you would expect to save people and maintain order – are too busy in Iraq. The president’s close friend, Joseph M. Allbaugh (former head of FEMA) frantically denied that in this morning’s Times, and insisted that everything was fine – before his cell phone seemed to stop working. It was unclear whether it cut out or was wrested away by a machete-wielding looter. In fact, more than 60% of the Louisiana Guard are available, as Allbaugh argued. But that means that roughly 40% are unavailable.

The feeling of a perfect storm deepened when pondering the symmetry of the two major stories in today’s news, the hurricane and the riot in Baghdad that killed nearly a thousand people. Worlds apart, and yet the haunting image of huge crowds wandering across bridges in both cities left a feeling that there are refugees all over the world, simply trying to get back home to where we were a few months – a few years – a century ago, back in the 20th, when we were innocently trying to build a bridge to the 21st. Now that we’re here, I’m wondering what the big hurry was.

It is unfair to blame any president for all of the problems on his watch, especially those that come out of the sky with very little warning. But the dark new landscapes coming into focus – long gas lines, soaring heating bills, and plenty of hurricanes to come – do not bode well for President Bush.

There are so many articles to read about New Orleans that it is disorienting, but one stayed with me, posted on the Times’ website at 6:51 yesterday. It described President Bush’s eerie journey on Air Force One from Crawford to Washington, while swooping over the devastation at very low altitude, like a gigantic sea gull. The article began with a nervous non sequitur – as if anyone had even asked the question – stating that Bush’s long stay in Crawford had been a “working vacation.” An obvious quote followed from his press secretary, Scott McLellan: “It’s devastating. It’s got to be doubly devastating on the ground.” Twice as devastating as what? The cabin of Air Force One? Then it continued with McClellan’s grandiloquent announcement that the federal government, after a day and a half of dithering, had determined this to be an “incident of national significance.” One wonders what the thousands of people stranded without homes and loved ones thought as they saw the enormous presidential aircraft flying in circles, just over their heads, before accelerating away from the unpleasant view. Their voices, as usual, were silent.

Mr. Widmer directs the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College.

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