Jul 14 2014
Obama Makes Bush Look Great On Katrina
President Obama and his “handlers” assume a certain level of ignorance by the general population (aided by a biased media willing to sacrifice their honor and morality for the political cause). For example, the method by which President Obama is creating a border crisis to extort legislation out of Congress requires a certain amount of ‘forgetfulness’ if not ignorance when it comes to Administration responses to past disasters and crisis.
President Bush was unfairly tagged as aloof because he did not want to divert much needed rescue resources to fly in and do a photo op of the damage left behind by Katrina (and left behind by a Democrat Mayor and Governor who refused to order evacuations in time). But even after the criticism he did respond – and did so immediately.
In hindsight, little of this seems fair. What Bush saw as he flew over the battered region shocked him. The next day, he publicly pledged $10.5 billion in federal aid, enlisted his father and Bill Clinton to help in recovery efforts, and spoke about the tragedy from the Rose Garden. The next day, he headed down there, where he literally put his arms around shell-shocked survivors, many of them black people. Bush returned again in mid-September and made a nationally televised address from Jackson Square in New Orleans.
President Bush took the heat because he wanted to end the crisis, not exploit it. What he did was act:
1. Within four days of Katrina’s landfall on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, then-President George W. Bush signed a $10.4 billion aid package and ordered 7,200 National Guard troops to the region. A few days later, he requested — and Congress approved — an additional $51.8 billion in aid.
2. Hundreds of firefighters from other cities who volunteered to help in the response were rerouted to Atlanta, where they sat through two days of presentations on sexual harassment and the history of FEMA before being sent to New Orleans.
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9. Before the storm hit, Amtrak ran equipment out of the city. With rooms for several hundred evacuees, they offered the spots to the city. Officials declined, so the train left with no passengers.
FEMA had pre-positioned supplies and volunteers inland of Katrina’s impact zone, which meant he acted proactively as well as after the damage was done.
More importantly, President B ush moved out and acted – he did not wait for (or extort) Congress to act. Probably because Katrina was an act of nature.
Where the Border Crisis is the act of a desperate, lame-duck President who has shown his true colors. And incompetent bully:
When he’s not berating Congress for not passing his ballooning supplemental request fast enough, Obama harangues Republicans in the House for not passing the Senate’s immigration reform bill – a legacy initiative Obama promised would be one of his accomplishments in his first year in office.
He has ignored Democratic lawmakers who demanded the president see the border for himself, preferring instead to maintain his distance from the crisis so as not to be too closely associated with it.
The guy insults those he needs assistance from. Which shows he does not care.
Obama has not called out the national guard. He has not changed the policy of holding children from Central America while deporting those from Mexico. And he sure has hell has not gone to ground zero to see first hand what his political games are causing.
He is an elitist out of his element. Theory has fallen to reality, and Obama’s inability to function as a leadrr is now on full display. He has and always will be an ankle-biting back-bencher.
And he is so arrogant, he actually thinks he is winning the optics and the political debate. Guess he needs a wake up call come November…
[…] For President Bush, Katrina became a toxic political subject due to dead bodies floating in the waters to underscore the human crisis. But at least he responded. […]