It's not the same thing...
Here are a few “key differences,” in the hopes that as little as possible breath and ink is wasted on this baseless comparison.
1) Katrina was not an accident, and as such, it was predictable. We must remember that what happened in New Orleans was not a natural disaster; it was entirely man-made.
Levees= man-made.
Oil rig= man-made.
Next?
3) Bush .... named a crony from Texas with no experience in disaster management to head FEMA.
Obama didn't name an experienced FEMA employee to head the Dept of Homeland Security. He named a political ally, Janet Napolitano, primarily because she was a woman and because he wanted someone with experience with immigration issues.
As noted in the original article, she was so unprepared for what happened that "even as late as Thursday afternoon that she did not know if the Defense Department even had equipment that might be helpful.... "
Next?
FEMA denied flood-control requests from Louisiana.
As noted in the original New York Times article, the federal government originally planned on having BP handle the spill instead of mounting its own control efforts.
Next?
Bush slept, and New Orleans wept; Obama was on the case from Day 1. ....the Coast Guard was on the scene within hours of the explosion at the oil rig; the DepSec of Interior was there the next day, and coordination with local officials and with BP have been constant from the beginning.
That's not what the Times (hardly a conservative newspaper) posted said. I won't post it again. Anyone can scroll up and read it.
Meanwhile, here's something from today's
Los Angeles Times (likewise, not a conservative source), namely that Obama's own White House is starting to worry about the comparisons:
- President Obama heads to the Gulf of Mexico this morning to be seen catching up first-hand with efforts to fight the massive oil slick that has begun licking the Louisiana shoreline.
The decision to go to the scene is hardly a surprise, though the White House had indicated just 24 hours earlier that there were no immediate plans for the president to visit the scene.
Why the quick change? Here’s where it gets sticky....
Sunday morning's talk shows will also likely mention the Obamas’ scheduled appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, emceed by NBC late-night host Jay Leno, telling side-splitting inside jokes on Washington's wine-sipping political/media establishment.
Can you say, laughing while the gulf burns?
The image of a president at a glamorous black-tie affair on a night when black oil gushes into the gulf and washes ashore down there is a bit too ancien regime for a populist president who has berated Washington's cynical politics-as-usual. But there he was...
On the other hand, unlike Bush, Obama has shown no concern over the sight of the commander-in-chief playing golf with civilian buddies on a military course frequently, while U.S. troops fight two wars halfway around the world.
So that ought to be enough about that.
You're giving up so easily, MEM. Is it that hard to discuss something without Rawmediamattersstory to tell you what to think?
