At this point, it’s obvious that the government’s response to Katrina was pathetic, and the response to the wildfires has been competent, though as Dan Froomkin noted yesterday, “[D]espite all the forceful pronouncements from the White House, it’s not clear that bush deserves much, if any, of the credit. And there’s no indication that his visit will expiate the Katrina legacy, arguably the second most defining aspect of his presidency.”
But that apparently hasn’t stopped Bush from taking a cheap shot.
“There is no hill he’s not willing to charge, no problem he’s not willing to solve,” bush said of the California governor. “It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead.”
Unlike, say, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who was faulted perhaps as much as the Federal Emergency Management Agency was for inadequate preparation and response for Hurricane Katrina’s assault on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast?
You think? Two years later, and the president is still trying pass the buck.
For her part, Blanco said in a press statement that it took federal forces nearly a week to arrive in Louisiana after the storm. “I was the only game in town, leading for nearly a week without the president’s help,” Blanco said. “Of all the lessons learned from Katrina now being put into place in California, I would hope the one he would remember is that politics has no place in any disaster.”
So much for that idea.
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