The President still doesn't get it.

He needs to sit on a roof for a week without food and water....with his
mother.

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Bush promises to `make it right' in effort to ease public anger By Ron
Hutcheson, Knight Ridder Newspapers Mon Sep 5, 6:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush returned to the Gulf Coast on Monday as
part of a White House effort to ease public anger over the sluggish
federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

"All levels of government are doing the best they can," the president
told evacuees at a church shelter in Baton Rouge, La. "If it's not
going right, we'll make it right."

Bush and his wife, Laura, visited Louisiana and Mississippi three days
after his first up-close look at the stricken region. The hastily
arranged return trip came amid mounting criticism of the president's
leadership in the aftermath of the natural disaster.

"We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved
city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry," the New Orleans
Times-Picayune said in an open letter to Bush in Sunday's edition. "Our
people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to
the government's shame."

Bush didn't directly address complaints about the government's response
during his stops in Baton Rouge and Poplarville, Miss. Instead, he
praised the work of private volunteers, reassured evacuees that they
wouldn't be abandoned, and expressed confidence in the region's ability
to rebound.

Bush didn't venture into New Orleans, which he also skipped on his
first visit. But after days of televised suffering by African Americans
in the city, White House officials ensured that the television pictures
of Bush's trip would include shots of the president with
African-American survivors.

Bush toured the Baton Rouge shelter with T.D. Jakes, one of the
nation's most prominent black preachers. Jakes' Dallas church, The
Potter's House, has 30,000 members. The president hugged and chatted
with displaced New Orleans residents as he strolled through the
makeshift but orderly facility at the Bethany World Prayer Center.

"This is a long-term project," Bush said. "This country is going to be
committed to doing what it takes to help people get back on their
feet."

"I think he's doing what he can do," said Richard Landres, a New
Orleans lumberyard worker who was a resident of the shelter.

Still, there was some awkwardness to the tour. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen
Blanco, who was given short notice of Bush's visit, kept her distance
as she and the president worked the room. Blanco, a Democrat, has hired
James Lee Witt, President Clinton's head of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and an outspoken critic of the agency's recent
performance, to advise her during the recovery.

Bush's somber, determined tone on Monday contrasted with the mixed
messages on Friday's visit, when he joked that he sometimes enjoyed
himself too much in New Orleans - an apparent reference to his
hard-drinking past. He also angered some hurricane survivors last week
by telling Michael Brown, who's become a top target for criticism as
the head of FEMA, that he was "doing a heck of a job."

"That's unbelievable," the Times-Picayune scolded in its holiday
weekend letter to the president. The paper urged Bush to fire Brown and
other top FEMA officials.

In other developments, Bush issued a series of emergency declarations
clearing the way for federal aid to states that have agreed to help
hurricane evacuees. In Houston, former President Clinton and former
President Bush formally launched their fundraising campaign for
disaster relief.

The elder Bush said that he and his wife, Barbara, don't enjoy hearing
their son criticized.

"The president can take it. What do I think as a father? I don't like
it," he said. "And if somebody wants to tell Barbara about things that
are going wrong, (that) the president's doing wrong, I suggest you wear
your flak jacket."