Saw this line (roughly) "Katrina has the potential to give Bush his own only-Nixon-could-go-to-China moment."
That phrase, "only Nixon could go to China", only occurs in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, doesn't it? Has geekery permeated so far as to appear as standard references in major news weeklies? I'm feeling terribly pop-culture-knowing at the moment.
No, it's pretty much a poli-sci trope.
ETA: For those who aren't poli sci geeks, the general thrust is that while Democrats or internationalists in general might have wanted to re-open relations with China, it would have been political suicide. (Soft on communism, appeasers, yadda.) Nixon, with his history of being an all-round hard-ass, thus had a kind of "statement against interest" credibility that allowed him to do it - no one could ever accuse him of being soft, so if he's doing it, it must be critical.
If Bush were a very different man, and this had had a very different effect on him, it could be true. People have speculated about things like a New Deal style works program, etc., a chance to reverse course on the environmental ransacking we've all grown so attached to, etc., which DifferentBush might be able to push through a DifferentRepublicanParty in a way no Dem ever could. But he's not, and it won't.