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Opinion: On Katrina’s 5th birthday, Louisianans now think Bush handled that better than Obama did the oil spill

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On his first non-vacation trip since his last vacation trip, President Obama flew down to the gulf region again today.

White House aides say the Democrat, sensitive to early spill criticism that his administration was slow to react to the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster, will recommit the nation to help the battered region that’s taken a lot of help in recent years.

But wait. This trip is not about the oil spill that’s become for Obama what Hurricane Katrina became at the time for George W. Bush, a federalized mess that many took as a sign of broader ineffectivness.

Now, however, there’s an intriguing new poll out of several hundred Louisianans.

And they seem to have reached a somewhat unexpected verdict on the job performance of the successive presidents:

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Public Policy Polling finds that today the most-impacted residents feel that the Republican President No. 43 displayed more leadership in his crisis than the Democratic President No. 44 has in his.

Despite all the controversy and subsequent political charges and recriminations, a clear majority (54%) now say they feel Bush handled the deadly hurricane’s aftermath better than Obama did the oil spill (33%). More than 1,600 people died in one of the worst storms and subsequent flooding in U.S. history.

Bush’s 21-point leadership approval spread has grown by six points during the last two months of the Obama administration.

As usual, Obama will give a speech during his New Orleans visit today. And another one Tuesday evening on Iraq.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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