You are right that Bush cut his vacation short, and looked the situation over from AF1, but I thought he had done the actual viewing tour from a helicopter...Yes I’ve seen the picture of him looking out a plane window, that one’s famous.
I know he did look the area over from AF1 while returning from vacation, without stopping, but going on to DC. Then the on the ground visit was a couple of days later. I’ve seen pictures suggesting he also toured the area from a helicopter, a search of “Bush views Katrina” turns up shots of helicopters with presidential logos over New Orleans. I may be wrong, but this suggests that he also did a helicopter flyover possibly during or before the on the ground visit.
OK found it, this article has a reference to Bush touring New Orleans by helicopter, with a picture, I also found another of him checking out Cameron, which was basically wiped out.
http://scienceprogress.org/2008/01/ubiquity-requires-redundancy/
No, I didn’t read the whole article...
And another photo montage of various shots during Katrina rescue, including one of Bush in a helicopter, and the statement that the air was cleared for his flyover. Not many people knew that. (I didn’t)
http://www.nerdylorrin.net/jerry/Katrina/KatrinaRooftopRescues.html
OK I was curious, hadn’t done a lot of specific searching, it never occurred to me that the common gripe was about Bush looking over New Orleans from AF1 on the way back to Washington, then I started seeing shots of a helicopter too...I was wondering what was going on. All the fuss about a plane viewing, and the actual aerial viewing tour looked like it was from a helicopter...OK both were true...
The reason why he didn’t land in New Orleans or Baton Rouge was that he didn’t want to take security off the situation and claim it for himself.