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Bush rallies for robertson to get katrina charity { September 7 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/07/bush_rallies_faith_based_groups_charities_for_aid/http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/07/bush_rallies_faith_based_groups_charities_for_aid/
'ARMIES OF COMPASSION'
Bush rallies faith-based groups, charities for aid
Private sector role debated
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | September 7, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Seeking to take command of a crisis that has drained his political capital and severely damaged his presidency, President Bush is using the Hurricane Katrina disaster as a demonstration of one of his core beliefs about government: private charities and faith-based groups can deliver some types of aid better than a big federal program.
In his White House remarks on the tragedy as well as in meetings with storm victims and private relief groups, Bush has repeatedly emphasized that the private sector should play a major role in helping the evacuees rebuild their homes and their lives, imploring Americans to donate cash.
Faith-based groups -- including one founded by Pat Robertson, a Virginia televangelist and former presidential candidate -- dominated an early Federal Emergency Management Agency list of charitable organizations accepting donations for hurricane victims.
Bush visited an Red Cross center in Washington on Sunday and met yesterday at the White House with representatives of religious and community charities, telling them that ''Out of the darkness will come some light. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are what makes America a great place."
At a news briefing, White House press secretary Scott McClellan later referred to the ''armies of compassion" aiding the victims.
Extolling the benefits of charities is a key part of Bush's strategy to recover from the sustained criticism that his administration bungled its immediate response to the disaster and that the president did not show much empathy toward hurricane victims. Members of the administration and its surrogates are vigorously defending the president, accusing the media, political rivals, and some local Louisiana officials of playing ''the blame game" while disaster victims still need help.
Still, Bush's promotion of private charities -- coupled with other administration officials contending that state and local governments must accept responsibility for crisis prevention and recovery -- has critics worried that the president doesn't see the federal government as the prime source of assistance for Americans in crisis.
There is ''a difference in governing philosophy" between former president Clinton and Bush, said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. ''The philosophy which governed [federal disaster relief] during the Clinton administration was obviously rejected by this administration. They do believe that people should rely on state and local resources and charities. I do think this is a disaster waiting to happen."
But Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said it made sense to use religious and other charities to help the region recover.
''There's no way the federal government can maintain on its payroll enough people to immediately respond to every single problem," said Sessions, whose home state's coastal region was damaged by Katrina. ''FEMA will never be large enough to fully deal with a hurricane of this size, and we wouldn't want them to."
Nevertheless, private relief groups have flocked to the region to supply food, water, and shelter to storm victims who lost their homes, jobs, and their possessions. But some contended that the government is irreplaceable in tasks such as large-scale rescue efforts.
Richard Walden, president of the Los Angeles-based, secular relief group Operation USA, said private organizations will do everything they can to aid the storm victims, but criticized Bush for not sending more help into the devastated area more quickly.
''His philosophy is just decentralize," Walden said. ''They'll do the military side -- come in and restore order," Walden said. ''But he wants companies and churches and the Red Cross to bear the major brunt of this."
Arnold M. Howitt, executive director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said ''there obviously is a large role that voluntary organizations can play and faith-based organizations can play. But these organizations don't have the capacity to deal with very large-scale disasters."
Kristin Vischer, a spokeswoman for Robertson's group, Operation Blessing, said the crisis presented ''a great opportunity" for religious charities to show what they can do. ''This is the time for churches, no matter what denomination, to open their doors and show what the Bible preaches," she said.
Louisiana lawmakers have accused the federal government of unfairly shifting the responsibility for dealing with the storm to state and local authorities. But Governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, refused a White House request to take control of the Louisiana National Guard and criticized the federal government's relief efforts.
''I asked for everything that we had available from the federal government. I got it from the National Guard," Blanco told CNN yesterday. ''And the federal effort was just a little slow in coming. I can't understand why."
Michael Greve, a specialist on federalism at the American Enterprise Institute, said that the Bush administration responded poorly to the crisis, but that ultimately, such tasks fall to state and municipal governments.
''I share everyone's fury about how the federal government has screwed up here," Greve said. ''But at the end of the day, any response will only be as good as the locals are."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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