Obama’s Harsh Words for George W. Bush Come Back to Haunt Him
Despite massive flooding in Louisiana that has killed 13 people and left thousands homeless, President Obama has continued to enjoy a vacation at Martha’s Vineyard rather than cutting it short to tour the damage and lend support to those in need.
Sitting U.S. presidents have historically responded when disasters strike the homeland, and failing to do so quickly has drawn harsh criticisms for some of them, both from the media and rival politicians.
When President George W. Bush waited two days before cutting his vacation short to tour the damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he was portrayed as uncaring and inept.
One of the president’s fiercest critics was Sen. Barack Obama.
The Washington Examiner detailed Thursday how in 2005, Obama slammed Bush for his response after Katrina ripped through New Orleans, leaving thousands stranded in high waters.
“I can say from personal experience over the last week, how frustrating it has been, how unconscionable it has been to be unable to find somebody in charge so that we can get medical supplies, doctors, nurses and other supplies down to the affected areas quickly enough,” the senator said.
“We’re going to have to do some hard thinking about how we could have failed our fellow citizens so badly, and how we will prevent such failures from ever occurring again,” Obama declared.
Three years later, when Obama was campaigning for president, he said, “Because when the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast extended their hand for help, help was not there. When people looked up from the rooftops, for too long, they saw an empty sky. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and our power, something wasn’t right with America.”
He continued to decry “a president who only saw the people from the window of an airplane, instead of down here on the ground trying to provide comfort and aid.”
The media coverage of Obama’s vacation also differs greatly from what Bush faced after Katrina.
Fox News noted Thursday that Bush was “torn to shreds in 2005 by mainstream media commentators for his initial response to Hurricane Katrina – yet President Obama’s detached response to the recent Louisiana floods has been met with resounding silence from those same outlets.”
The report said that media coverage at the time “not only criticized Bush for the difficulties the federal government faced in responding to the disaster, but also lambasted him for taking too long to return from vacation and to visit the site on the ground.”
Fox pointed to a 2005 news analysis in USA Today that declared, “President Bush has shown that he can be empathetic, sensitive and decisive. But those qualities eluded him for days after Hurricane Katrina, and the lapse could become a defining moment of his White House tenure.”
The Washington Post also railed against Bush’s Katrina response, calling it the second-worst moment of his presidency.
“Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the last straw for Bush’s second term, with his widely criticized handling of the recovery pretty much precluding him from any kind of success in his final years in office,” the Post wrote.
Fox noted that “such concerns have been almost entirely absent from media coverage of the Louisiana floods in recent days.”
One media outlet that has had strong words for Obama is the Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge, site of some of the worst flooding.
In an editorial Wednesday, it urged the president to cut short his vacation at “a playground for the posh and well-connected” and instead visit “the most anguished state in the union.”
The Advocate said that “a disaster this big begs for the personal presence of the president at ground zero. In coming here, the president can decisively demonstrate that Louisiana’s recovery is a priority for his administration – and the United States of America.” (For more from the author of “Obama’s Harsh Words for George W. Bush Come Back to Haunt Him” HERE)
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