Posted on 01/13/2010 2:58:47 PM PST by tobyhill
The gods of politics have an ironic sense of justice. They can force a president to confront more complex versions of the very problems we thought we had solved by electing him. As you judge, so shall you be judged: sometimes there is an almost mathematical precision to it. Just ask President Barack Obama. Elected to end the war in Iraq, he finds himself deep in a metastasizing war against Al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and, perhaps, elsewhere. Elected to bring America out of a recession, he now has to deal with our dwindling role in a global economy dominated by the BRICs and by the rapidly growing, smaller "frontier" countries.
And now: Haiti.
Elected in part out of revulsion at the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, Obama now finds himself confronting an even more devastating and complex humanitarian crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
The Haitian earthquake is a tragedy. It happened to a favored minority. It did not happen in the US.
Katrina hit all three, so it was worse.
I blame elected officials in Louisiana for the Katrina disaster, particularly the Governor and the Mayor of New Orleans. The notion that it’s all Bush’s fault is a myth promoted by Democrats.
besides, one was a hurricane in which the people had at least 5 days warning to get the hell out and the other was an earthquake that gives no warning.
Obama responded quicker to the Haitian earthquake quicker than he did to the near terrorist attack of Christmas Day 2009.
I remember Bush telling the people to get the hell out and then I remember the MSM interviewing people claiming they wouldn’t get the hell out.
If Bush caused the Katrina hurricane....then Obama caused the earthquake in Haiti.
Expect Obama to make sure that there is no egregiously incompetent “Brownie” in the chain of command,
I suppose, unfortunately, this includes napolitano..
Notice how “The One” responded to Haiti in hours and to the Detroit bomber in days. Priorities???
Bush did what the law permitted at the time. The law required the state to invite the feds in. Both the mayor of N.O. and the governor of Louisiana refused to allow the Feds to come into the disaster zone because, and they explained it, that way, they did not want the Republicans to get credit for anything.
Re Katrina being unexpected... true, but what I was getting at was “Bush’s fault” in Katrina, so BHO will feel he really must outdo himself in rebuilding Haiti for show political purposes.
Commie propaganda.
Finelackey is doing the grunt work here to set up Obama for a magnificient, transcendent, narcissitic, vainglorius, masturbatory moment. The lie that Bush was responsible for much of the suffering in the wake of Katrina will now be followed by the lie that Obama alleviated much of the suffering in Haiti. Axelrod probably has a communications team already on the ground there to push the story.
No, no, no. For Obama to outdo Bush, Obama would have to have prevented the earthquake, just like Bush should have prevented the hurricane. /s
I thought the US did OK with tsunami relief.
Was that after Katrina? I think it was.
It seems to me he’s already FAILED in his response to two “man made disasters” right here on US soil.
For the record this is who was responsible for the real problem with the Katrina response.
We need to send hospital ships to Haiti ASAP. We need to co-ordinate with other nations to send help. France should be helping as the people speak French. We should also offer to help re-build. Its only 9 million people in the whole nation.
In general I thought the government response was fairly good. I had helicopters flying over my house in Baton Rouge for several weeks starting very shortly after the levy collapsed.
In the real world nothing works perfectly and there is always room for improvement.
Nagin’s authority ended at the city limits. He couldn’t call the mandatory evacuation until he had somewhere to shelter everyone in the city who needed shelter. The only option he had was to use the Superdome until the dingbat did her job.
Nagin had his faults and issues but the person most responsible for the fiasco was the governor.
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