What possible good would it do for Bush to be in New Orleans?

From Ace,
a protest against empty, meaningless gestures:

[T]he Angry Left has been demanding purely symbolic gestures by Bush for five days now-- cutting his "vacation" short, visiting the damaged areas, etc.

When he accedes to their demands for feel-good symbolism, they then claw him for doing so.
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Bush was quite capable of directing (to the extent needed) the releif efforts from Crawford. Most of the White House staff was with him throughout his "vacation." That's why they call it "the Western White House."

But you demanded he pull Clinton and Gore "feel your pain" stunt-appearances. He did so. Now you accuse him of pandering.
He was pandering. To you. To your demands for empty gestures.

It puts me in mind of the furor after Princess Diana was killed, demanding the Queen share their pain . All this righteous indignation over a perfectly synthetic emotion. Yes, a beautiful young woman had died, but she was a dope, had caused the royal family infinite grief, and the Queen did not like her much. It was sad, but so is the death of anyone who dies in their 30s. The people who carried on greiving were probably the same hooligans who had to be deported from Portugal for bad behavior during the World Cup.

Bush is no orator. I wish he were. I wish he could get people behind him as FDR did. I wish he could express himself as lucidly as Reagan did. It would be good for the country to have an orator like Tony Blair at the helm. Or Churchill. But we don't.

Stolen from Tinkerty Tonk.