US President George W. Bush always makes a popular target in pacifist Germany. And now that the president and chief cheerleader of the Iraq war is being roundly criticized from all sides -- including by fellow Republicans -- for his lackluster response to the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina, German editorialists can't hold themselves back. Some papers do show a modicum of reserve, suggesting that the crisis in the Gulf States will merely damage Bush's agenda, while others go so far as to say it will cause the demise of his second term. The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung, whose editorials are often way off the mark, hits home on Monday with a cartoon that neatly sums up Germans' eagerness to take advantage of Bush's loss of popularity. The cartoon is split in two and in the first box it shows Bush rushing to grab a helmet and rifle the minute a commentator suggests Iraq's Saddam Hussein might be a mass murderer. The second shows him calmly sitting in an easy chair "thinking about" what can be done as a television announcer describes the catastrophe in the southern states and that thousands of Americans need to be rescued.

The business daily, the Financial Times Deutschland, offers an even blunter assessment, titling its editorial the "Divided States of America." The FTD says Katrina hit almost four years after the 9/11 terrorist bombers and caused the same sort of psychological shock. However, the nation's reaction was just the opposite. Instead of uniting, the nation divided. "Anger and aggression have mixed into the traditional American readiness to help those in need. And even President Bush's own loyal followers have put him in the dock." Since the World Trade Center attacks, Bush has made much of the need to protect America's borders and has stressed the importance of the Department of Homeland Security in making Americans safer. The hurricane, says the paper, has made a "mockery" of most of the administration's rhetoric. Perhaps, the paper implies, Bush would have been more ready to act if the damage had not been inflicted by Mother Nature. "What, it is being asked, would the administration have done if the levees around New Orleans were not destroyed by a storm but by al-Qaida?"

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung, titles its editorial "Day of Disgrace" and compares Bush's inspirational leadership in the days after 9/11 to his seeming nonchalance in the wake of the hurricane. After 9/11, Bush went to Ground Zero with a bullhorn, the paper notes and from the ground not only encouraged the rescuers, but inspired the whole nation to unite. Two days after Katrina, what did he do? He flew over the affected area in his private plane. Today, said the paper, we have a "detached president, one who doesn't put himself in the middle" of tragedy. Now, the paper writes, it is Bush who stands in the middle of the hurricane "and over him, the most dangerous political storm of his administration has begun to brew." Four years ago, "Muslim terrorists attacked rich and poor equally. This time it's more a question of race and class. Those who didn't have a car or enough money to flee, who were too sick or too handicapped to get out suffered the direst consequences of the disaster." Although it is too late for Bush to make up for his initial aloofness, "a lot depends on how he acts in the coming days and weeks," the paper says. Most important will be "if he sends a signal that in 21st century America, skin color and class background don't decide between life and death. And, if he continues with his plan to lower taxes for the well-off...and if he grasps the dimension of the crisis or just carries on with business as usual."

The left-leaning Die tageszeitung devotes three full pages to sounding the death knell for the Bush administration. It uses photos, quotes from prominent Americans and even translates sections of a letter  film-maker and anti-Bush firebrand Michael Moore posted on his Web site. "The storm did more than destroy America's image of itself," the paper writes. "It also had the power to end the Republican era sooner than expected. America is ashamed of itself. To an extent it hasn't been in a long time. Even Abu Graib found some defenders. Now even the most conservative papers are attesting to the national and collective disgrace."