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SCOTT SIMON, host:

The Times Square bomb plot, of course, got the attention of the White House. So did the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. Judging critical situations is part of the job description of a president, and that can make a huge difference in public perception. The Bush presidency, for example, never fully recovered after Hurricane Katrina. Whether the country approves of President Obama's actions in handling these latest crises could overshadow the rest of his term.

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports on how Americans decide whether a president has succeeded or failed in a national crisis.

ARI SHAPIRO: The turning point for Jimmy Carter's poll numbers and his presidency was the Iran hostage crisis. His approval ratings flopped permanently, but not immediately.

Andrew Kohut runs the Pew Research Center.

Mr. ANDREW KOHUT (Pew Research Center): The immediate response to President Carter was a very positive one. His approval rating soared, I think from a 30 percent level to a 55, 60 percent level. It was one of the biggest jumps we had ever seen.

SHAPIRO: Kohut says the moral to this story is...

Mr. KOHUT: The public is always willing to give the president credit for trying, especially in the initial time period when an acute problem occurs.

SHAPIRO: That instinct to support the president doesn't last forever. Patience runs thin, and results matter. I asked almost a dozen experts in this field the same question - Republicans and Democrats, pollsters and spin doctors: How do Americans make a collective decision about whether a president has succeeded or failed in a crisis? Each person gave the same answer.

Here's how Republican consultant Mark Corallo and Democrat Lorena Chambers put it.

Mr. MARK CORALLO (Republican Consultant): No amount of spin can overcome poor performance.

Ms. LORENA CHAMBERS (Democratic Consultant): Bad behavior, I don't think, can actually be saved by good messaging.

SHAPIRO: Crisis consultant Lanny Davis, who worked in the Clinton White House, calls it a dog bites man story that people in politics too often ignore. If you want to appear successful, succeed.

Mr. LANNY DAVIS (Crisis Consultant): The misconception is that the message is the solution. And it's not only a misconception, it's a trap, that crisis managers as well as people in the White House can easily fall into. You lose sight over what the American people are looking for: solutions.

SHAPIRO: Despite the professional consensus that results are more important than images, people inside the Obama administration are not taking any chances with their messaging.

Describing the response to the oil spill, President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano used the same phrase more than a dozen times in one day.

President BARACK OBAMA: Relentless response to this crisis from day one.

Secretary JANET NAPOLITANO (Department of Homeland Security): Is that from day one...

Secretary KEN SALAZAR (Department of the Interior): From day one there's been...

Secretary NAPOLITANO: ...why from day one they were all...

President OBAMA: Weve made preparations from day one...

Secretary SALAZAR: ...to prepare for the worst...

SHAPIRO: At a time when confidence in government is lower than it has been in decades, the Obama administration is on a mission to restore Americans' faith in their elected representatives. So this messaging project is bigger than the crises at hand. It's about conveying competence on a large scale.

Immediately after police arrested a suspect in the Times Square bomb plot, Attorney General Eric Holder called a press conference. That's not unusual, but this press conference was at 1:30 in the morning.

Attorney General ERIC HOLDER (U.S. Department of Justice): The American people should know that we are deploying every resource available, and we will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice.

SHAPIRO: So if spin really is less important than results, why the devotion to messaging? Democratic crisis consultant Lorena Chambers believes the relationship between the government and the people is like a marriage. She says doing nice things for your spouse is not enough.

Ms. CHAMBERS: When we do something good, we need to be able to tell the other person, hey, you may not know this, but I went out and took out all the trash without you telling me.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. CHAMBERS: So it's very much like communicating to our communities and just letting them know what's going on

SHAPIRO: The pitfall is when a president tells the country he has taken out the trash - but the garbage is actually still rotting in the corner of the kitchen.

Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.

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