(Posted Friday, September 2)

I wrote yesterday that President Bush had one more day before his administration's failure to effectively respond to the disaster in New Orleans would become a huge political liability.

That was yesterday. Today, thanks to a "John Wayne" general who presided over the arrival of the federal cavalry in New Orleans, it seems that Bush — like the residents of that disintegrating city — has been given a reprieve. Whether it will last remains to be seen, but for now the images of dead bodies and screaming refugees have been replaced on TV screens and on the web by images of gun-toting National Guardsmen passing out water at the fetid Superdome and military medics tending to the sick and dying throughout the city.

That means the meta-story-line may return to the one Americans like: triumph over adversity. The horrified and ashamed tone in the news reports and newscasts that were coming out of New Orleans in the last few days suggested the meta-story-line was turning into a politically dangerous one, a story of a great nation brought low by its own failure to protect its citizens. That would have been a huge embarrassment to the Bush administration, and would have been seen, when paired with the situation Iraq, as a metaphor for this country being adrift and without a strong leader. It also would have exposed — as it was beginning to — the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots in America that is the unseen hallmark of the Bush administration, along with the disquieting concordance between class and race that created an all-black city of "left-behinds" in New Orleans, many of whom simply could not afford to flee as the hurricane approached.

But Bush, as they say, is a lucky guy. The day that began with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin literally cursing at the Bush administration's ineptitude (a powerful speech that was replayed on the cable news networks as Bush took off to tour the Gulf Coast) has ended with crowds of refugees in the city cheering the arrival — finally — of the National Guard. The media reports now include paragraphs like this:

At the New Orleans Convention Center, some of the thousands of storm victims awaiting their deliverance applauded, threw their hands heavenward and screamed, "Thank you, Jesus!" as the camouflage-green trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in what has become an increasingly desperate and lawless city. "Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here," said Leschia Radford.

The same media reports, however, are also including statements like this:

There was also anger.

"Hell no, I'm not glad to see them," said Michael Levy, 46, whose remarks were cheered by those around him. " They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em. I'll be glad when 100 buses show up. We've been sleeping on the ground like rats."

Evacuees at the center told a reporter that they had seen seven dead bodies on the third floor, and said a 14-year-old girl had been raped.

"We all are stuck here with no police protection," Mr. Martin, one of the refugees, said. "There are kids here, you've got little girls that are being raped and they're not stopping for us."

And reporters keeping a watchful eye for a moment analogous to Bush's "bullhorn moment" in the rubble of the World Trade Center after Sept. 11 didn't find one. He did try to give the cameras what they wanted; he hugged displaced black residents of Mississippi, an image that will surely make the front pages. He also gave a strangely out of touch quote about having sympathy for Trent Lott, a man whose suffering (if he is suffering at all) can hardly be compared to that of most hurricane victims.

"The good news," said the president, "is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

And then he headed back to Washington, saying he wouldn't forget what he saw. Oil prices remained high. The death toll continued to climb. Mayor Nagin hadn't yet said whether Bush's visit mollified his anger. And the Superdome still hadn't been fully evacuated.

But Bush bought himself a bit more time, I think. This story is still on the brink of becoming a political disaster for him, and becoming a new frame through which his other failings will be viewed (and magnified). But, lucky for him, it's not there yet, and could just as easily tip back into the more familiar Bush story-line: stumbling toward a hollow "victory."