They gotta get through the midterm elections first.
I think the real problem that has him and them going over the top is that it's not going to take too long before people in the US SE start putting two and two together about typical Fed disaster response in the years before Bush and after.
Note to danreck: this is not partisan... after all, stuff happened under Reagan and they were up to the task. This is about the specific things that Bush has done. I think it has them nervous about how well the party might do in the US SE after this event.