<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-color: rgb(228, 228, 228); "> </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal New York; min-height: 19px; ">Sorry if this is a repeat -- marta </DIV> <IMG src="cid:016D5C35-A0E2-4FC0-93ED-6D34C7BB701F@local"><TABLE width="871.0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="width: 871.0px; background-color: #eecba5; padding: 10.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px"><TBODY><TR><TD valign="middle" style="width: 851.0px; padding: 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal New York; min-height: 19px; "> </DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Two-In-Three Critical Of Bush's Relief EffortsHuge Racial Divide Over Katrina and Its ConsequencesThe American public is highly critical of President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Two-in-three Americans (67%) believe he could have done more to speed up relief efforts, while just 28% think he did all he could to get them going quickly. At the same time, Bush’s overall job approval rating has slipped to 40% and his disapproval rating has climbed to 52%, among the highest for his presidency. Uncharacteristically, the president’s ratings have slipped most among his core constituents – Republicans and conservatives. The disaster has triggered a major shift in public priorities. For the first time since the 9/11 terror attacks, a majority of American say it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism. And the poll finds that Katrina has had a profound psychological impact on the public. Americans are depressed, angry and very worried about the economic consequences of the disaster. Fully 58% of respondents say they have felt depressed because of what’s happened in areas affected by the storm. In recent years, this percentage is only surpassed by the 71% that reported feeling depressed in a survey taken just days after the Sept. 11 attacks. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 6-7 among 1,000 Americans, including an oversample of African Americans, finds a huge racial divide in perceptions of the disaster and lessons to be learned from Katrina’s aftermath. For example, 71% of blacks say the disaster shows that racial inequality remains a major problem in the country; a majority of whites (56%) feel this was not a particularly important lesson of the disaster. And while 66% of blacks think that the government’s response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the storm’s victims had been white, an even larger percentage of whites (77%) disagree. The survey finds that while the hurricane has drawn broad public attention, spiraling gas prices have attracted as much interest as reports on the storm’s impact. Roughly seven-in-ten are paying close attention to each story (71% gas prices, 70% hurricane’s impact). That represents the highest level of interest in gas prices in the two decades of Pew’s News Interest Index.Huge Racial Divide Over Katrina and Its Consequences Two-In-Three Critical Of Bush's Relief Efforts <A href="http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=255">View complete report</A>To remove your email address from this distribution list, enter your email here: <A href="http://people-press.org/reports/remove.php3">http://people-press.org/reports/remove.php3</A></BODY></HTML>