I personally believe they were looking for an Obama Katrina moment and so far, this is the first decent hurricane of his presidency so the media wanted to hype it up as much as possible before campaign season started.
I believe the headlines were already written praising his leadership and highlighting how under Obama, few lives were lost, things went smoothly, etc. Unlike his predecessor and Katrina.. yadda, yadda, yadda.
It fizzling out and the public almost mocking the news reports seems to have ruined this opportunity.
Disaster isn’t a stimulus package
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / August 28, 2011
COLUMNISTS MAKE predictions at their peril, but I’ll go out on a limb: If Hurricane Irene turns out to have wrought the havoc some forecasters have predicted, some expert will quickly reassure us that all the destruction is good for the economy. “One of the most reliable results of any natural disaster,’’ remarks economist Russell Roberts, “is the spreading of bad economics.’’ And few fallacies are more enduring than the belief that disasters are really a net benefit to society, since the money spent on recovery stimulates new jobs and construction......