Forwarded by Hunter ---
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318557909400135
Blue Skies For Obama - By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 4:20 PM PTMedia:
Katrina crashes into New Orleans, FEMA responds feebly and PresidentBush is blamed for the loss of life and limb. Winter smacks middle America, killing 55, FEMA's late again, but President Obama gets a pass. Read More: Military & DefenseLast week's winter storm, paying no attention to Al Gore's warnings about global warming, has left a trail of dead and broken bodies and wrecked property from the Plains to the East Coast. Of the 55 deaths, 24 have been in hard-hit Kentucky. Throughout the region, hundreds of thousands are still without power and some survivors have had to resort to using melted snow for their watersupply. A shortage of gasoline and heating oil has made life miserable formany. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear called the ice storm "the biggest natural disaster that this state has ever experienced, at least in modern history."The Federal Emergency Management Agency, however, apparently didn't get the memo. Much as they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, locals are complaining that FEMA has not been swift enough in delivering aid. Nothing remarkable about that. FEMA, whose performance in the 2005 Katrina disaster wasn't exactly sterling, is a federal agency that supplements state and local authorities. It's not an on-site organization and can't respond instantly. That's the job of the city, county and state governments. Sensing that the gloomy stories gushing out of New Orleans were the perfec tplatform from which to lash into the president, an opportunistic media-political-celebrity pack roundly accused Bush of negligence,incompetence and outright malice. From rapper Kanye West's immediate charge that "George Bush doesn't careabout black people" to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's blog entryfrom just over a month ago lamenting that Bush did a "terrible" job of handling of the disaster, smears rained down in a devastating storm of their own.The bitter criticism achieved its intended effect. Many people believe that Bush's FEMA response ‹ or more accurately the media's biased portrayal of it‹ was the moment he began to lose the public. Meanwhile, Obama, whose administration on taking office vilified Bush on Katrina, has done no more for the victims of the winter storm. Yet no tirade has been forthcoming from either the media or the loopy orbit of CelebrityPlanet. The double standard is what we've come to expect, but it's not what weshould continue to accept.
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Well Hunter, I suppose you were waiting for us liberals to jump to Obama's defense. Not in my case. I think that protection against natural disasters ranks as a top federal priority along with national defense. I do not buy this federal/state blame game. If a catastrophe is hitting anywhere in the country, I expect the president to ensure that relief is coming -- completely and quickly. I haven't studied the response to the winter storm in detail. If there was the neglect that is claimed, I would lay it all at Obama's footsteps. Such things became his problem at 12:01 on January 20th.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment but I am not directing my comments toward the OBAMA administration's response but rather the media double standard. I read the NY Times this morning cover to cover. The ice storm, its effects, the response were not covered one bit in the paper. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the media loves a leader in a democracy can be a bit troubling. But it is also a sign of effective (i.e. non-divisive) leadership. I still wonder what was happening with FEMA when the winter storm hit. It seems to me that it may have been an opportunity for Obama to show some real leadership.
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