Letter from Mississippi  Gone With the Surge  An always
anomalous section of the South prepares to reinvent itself.  by
September 26, 2005  Mississippi is among the red states, which
supported President Bush in the last election, and the
Mississippi coast, which is where I grew up, was the most pro-
Bush region of the state. When Bush visited Biloxi, on the
Friday after Hurricane Katrina, he was greeted warmly by
friendly politicians, including the state’s two United States
senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who are Republicans; and
Governor Haley Barbour, an old friend, who was the head of the
Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997. Barbour thanked
Bush for coming, and, as the President picked his way along
streets littered with the splinters of destroyed houses, he
encountered hurricane victims who actually seemed glad to see
him. One man assured Bush that he had survived Hurricane
Camille, in 1969, “and we’ll go through this storm.” New Orleans
was Bush’s next stop, and he seemed almost to drea