Yup. It's a bipartisan effort to encourage private donations. I don't really think that this is what you would like "count" to mean here, but it's an encouraging step nonetheless in raising funds to help, and in promoting Americans as a generous people.
FWIW, others have noted that the dynamic of calibrating the public response very badly in the beginning and trying to catch up later is
not unusual for this Administration.
- President Bush's initial, halting response to the Indian Ocean tsunami catastrophe, followed within days by strong expressions of concern and decisive action, spotlighted a governing style that sometimes finds its stride only after stumbling at the gate.
This seems especially true when Bush is confronted with a cataclysmic event and must improvise quickly — as with the Dec. 26 tsunami or the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"The pattern we tend to see is an administration that quite often ends up doing the right thing, even though their initial judgments and first reactions are often wrong and short-sighted," said Charles Cook, a Washington-based political analyst and publisher of the Cook Political Report.
Slow to speak out, Bush first offered $15 million in financial aid, then $35 million. But now, having upped the aid package to $350 million and dispatched both Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to survey relief efforts, the president may capitalize on an opportunity to provide world leadership and improve his image among Muslims opposed to the Iraq war. Many of the tsunami victims are Muslim.
The president's decision to send his brother to the region was "about as strong a signal of personal concern and intent to help as Bush could send without going himself," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas historian.
