While the political damage to the White House cannot be compared to the devastation that Katrina caused in the US Gulf Coast, many believe that Bush's handling of the catastrophe is one of the defining moments of his presidency.
'People all over America' feel that Bush will be judged by how he dealt with Katrina, US Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'It showed how ineffective this administration has been in protecting the homeland.'
Reid's assessment is widely shared throughout the world, where people watched in amazement how the hurricane - after building up for days over the Gulf of Mexico - left the world's wealthiest nation paralyzed and unable to help its citizens. And even some in Bush's own political party agrees.
'If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not,' members of Bush's Republican Party said in a report released in mid February.
The report, part of Congressional investigations into Katrina's aftermath, scathingly alluded to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.
'Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time,' it said.
When Katrina struck New Orleans and broke through the city's flood dams, Americans were shocked at live video showing the famed city under water, its people suffering and authorities unable to regain control.
Not only the bureaucracy was slow to respond, but Bush himself: The next day, Bush mentioned the hurricane only briefly ahead of a scheduled speech. He waited until day four to visit the disaster zone.
Bush's approval rating fell three points to 42 per cent, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, right after Katrina - much lower than for Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan at a comparable time in their second terms.
'The Katrina aftermath hurt Bush severely,' said Larry Sabato, head of the Centre for Politics at University of Virginia, in a telephone interview. 'It destroyed the image of Bush as a leader who could protect us.'
Bush has yet to recover from the Katrina fallout, Sabato said, and has failed to deliver on promises to rebuild the region, wasting the chance at a 'historic accomplishment'.
With the US government already deep in the red, the costly disaster 'wiped out' any funds that Bush would have had available for other projects, Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess said.
Katrina continues to batter the White House. At a Senate hearing on the federal response February 10, Michael Brown, the since disgraced and ousted director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), contradicted the Bush administration about when it first knew the extent of the damage.
Bush is haunted by giving the FEMA job to Brown, a former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association who had no emergency management experience. Even as the political steam was building over Washington's lagging response, Bush fondly patted Brown on the back during a tour of the disaster zone, calling him 'Brownie' and telling him what a good job he was doing.
Opposition Democrats blasted the White House over its reluctance to release documents related to the federal response to Katrina.
Senator Joseph Lieberman accused the White House of withholding key documents and charged there had been 'a near-total lack of cooperation.' US Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat representing New Orleans, told dpa she thinks it is 'irresponsible' that key information is being withheld.
'It's not so much about trying to place blame as about understanding what happened' and prevent a repeat, Landrieu said.
Members of Bush's Republican Party say they believe the war on terrorism, not Katrina, will be his legacy, and point out that emergency response is a local - not national - responsibility, and in the hands of local Louisiana Democrats.
'It's not fair to take one incident and say that that defines' a presidency, said Senator John Cornyn. <!--page-->
Sensing his political vulnerability amidst the finger pointing, Bush, who once said he could not name a single mistake in office, took responsibility 'to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right'.
He gave a carefully orchestrated prime-time speech to the nation from New Orleans' Jackson Square, vowing to 'do what it takes' to rebuild the city and calling for investment tax credits and an ambitious reconstruction plan.
But since then, more than two-thirds of the city has not been able to return due to lagging reconstruction and failed vision for the city. The American public still tastes the bitterness of a city abandoned.
Comedian Conan O'Brien best summed up Bush's troubles shortly after the hurricane hit.
'Yesterday President Bush made his fifth visit to the area that received the most damage from Hurricane Katrina - in other words, the White House,' O'Brien joked.
