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Clinton and bush senior partner in katrina relief { September 6 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/national/nationalspecial/06clinton.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/national/nationalspecial/06clinton.html
September 6, 2005
Clinton Is an Unexpected Partner in the Hurricane Effort
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 - As President Bush and administration officials fanned out across the Gulf Coast in the White House's campaign to deal with criticism that they had failed in managing the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, there was one unexpected face in their crowd on Monday: former President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Clinton was at Reliant Center next to the Astrodome in Houston, where about 3,800 homeless New Orleans residents had decamped, standing next to former President George Bush as they announced the creation of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund to help hurricane victims. After that, the two former presidents, along with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, toured the shelter, while President Bush visited storm-struck areas of Mississippi and Louisiana, providing a flow of television images suggesting a concerned White House on the march.
Mr. Clinton's visit to the Houston shelter on Monday is the latest time the former president has come to the current president's aid in his second term, from early in the year when Mr. Bush was criticized for his slow response to the tsunami, to initially defending the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina at the White House last week, to praising the credentials of Judge John G. Roberts Jr., Mr. Bush's choice for the Supreme Court. And it offered what many Democrats described as a vivid, if slightly disconcerting, insight into the complicated and increasingly transactional relationship between the Bush and Clinton families.
While officials in both parties said they had no doubt that both men were first and foremost intent on helping Americans, they also took note of the web of political benefits spun by this burgeoning alliance. It helps Mr. Bush during the roughest time of his presidency, Mr. Clinton as he tries to establish himself as a respected and admired former president and Mrs. Clinton as she potentially prepares to run for president in 2008.
For President Bush, Mr. Clinton's agreement to a request by the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to join former President Bush in their second fund-raising project could hardly have been better timed. One of the crucial elements of a White House strategy to help Mr. Bush recover from the rounds of criticism he received in the wake of the disaster in New Orleans was to present him as above politics, and to avoid any kind of political entanglements with Democrats.
"It definitely helps Bush," said Douglas Sosnik, who was White House political director under Mr. Clinton. "Given what has happened to Bush in the last six or seven days, there is not a single aspect of this crisis at all that can be positive to Bush. So anything he can do to get politics out of this - given how vulnerable he is politically - the better for him."
At the same time, the political benefits for the former president and Mrs. Clinton were at least as striking. Mr. Clinton has been engaged in a campaign to establish himself as a respected force in American life after a rather messy departure from the White House, using his foundation for prominent work in the fight against AIDS in Africa.
He is also trying to be less polarizing than he was when he left the White House, an effort to become less of a political weight if, as expected, Mrs. Clinton runs for president, friends said. The presence of Mr. Clinton next to Mr. Bush will make it that much harder, some Democrats said, for Republicans to attack the Clintons.
"Isn't it interesting that Bush realizes he's in trouble and he has to phone President Clinton for cover?" said Bob Mulholland, a Democratic leader from California. "Bush is standing next to President Clinton for cover. You've got all these photos of President Clinton with both Bushes. It's hard for a Republican in the national arena to be attacking the Clintons with these kind of images out there."
White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Clinton's spokesman, Jay Carson, said of Mr. Clinton's involvement: "In a time of crisis like this, it is President Clinton's nature to do everything he can to help victims. His involvement is tied to nothing other than to help the tens of thousands of victims of the hurricane."
Still, the situation was complicated Monday. Mr. Clinton seemed to be struggling to be diplomatic in talking about the administration's response to the hurricane damage. He told CNN that "we failed once, but we don't want to fail a second time." But at times he seemed to be following the political directions of the White House in deferring questions about the past and turning them into questions about the future.
"It's an appropriate thing to look into, but not at this time - they're still finding bodies there," Mr. Clinton said in Houston.
By contrast, Mrs. Clinton was fierce in denouncing the administration, particularly for budget cuts it made to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"It was basically taken apart and denied funding," she said. Mrs. Clinton, in an interview, disputed the suggestion that her husband was joining hands with Mr. Bush and Mr. Bush.
"He is no longer in politics," she said. "He is a former president with an enormous amount of influence and just as during the tsunami, he is willing to serve his country. He has expressed strong feelings about the way this has been handled. My role is different. I'm on the front lines dealing with these issues day to day."
Adam Nagourneyreported from Washington for this article,and John M. Broder from Houston.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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