Riding Air Force One with President Trump back to the nation’s capital on Monday afternoon felt eerily like that grim day in 2005 when President George W. Bush was flying to the White House to confront the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. …
A onetime political colossus with a 90 percent approval rating built on his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Bush’s presidency was marred by Katrina, which became a modern metaphor for a mishandled crisis.
Whether Mr. Trump’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak becomes remembered the same way or not, it is too early to say, and they are very different challenges. But the history of presidents grappling with crises is replete with lessons that sometimes go unlearned and examples that go unheeded. CONT.
Peter Baker, New York Times
See also:
“A Presidency On Life Support: George W. Bush After Hurricane Katrina” by John Kenneth White