Obama got a bounce from his early response to Hurricane Sandy. He benefited greatly from Governor Chris Christie praising him to high heaven. The fawning main stream media seized the opportunity to portray Obama as “Presidential” and contrasted that with the performance of George Bush after Katrina. This, they explained, was what real leadership looked like! However, they spoke much too soon. The reality of the storm is starting to hit home and the miraculous results promised by Obama are nowhere to be seen. Instead they have been replaced with pictures of huge generators supporting the New York City marathon while people in Staten Island struggled to stay warm. Mayor Bloomberg finally wised up and cancelled the New York Marathon, but the damage has been done.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut residents started pelting utility workers with eggs because residents felt power was restored to rich neighborhoods first. Perhaps Obama doesn’t like poor people.
There are a lot of people who really expected FEMA to show up with food, water and generators. After all, President Obama was going to fix everything. Remember? He even promised to return phone calls with 15 minutes. That lasted for about 24 hours before he was back on the campaign trail. Now, when things are getting ugly and people are desperate; Obama is long gone.
If some recent news reports are accurate, FEMA may have dropped the ball big time. Everyone knew this storm was coming for about a week, but there apparently was no pre-positioning of food and water. There is even one report that FEMA, in an act of desperation, had to order water from a private vendor and waited until Friday to do that. If this is true, the political backlash against Obama may be bigger than the storm itself.
The following report from ABC Nightline is revealing:
Senator Chuck Schumer, who was probably hoping for a nice Obama like photo stop moment, ended up being confronted by desperate residents pleading for help. Check out the two minute mark where James Molinaro, Staten Island Borough President, asks how this can happen in American, with a sheepish Senator Schumer standing right behind him in a bright and shiny new FEMA jacket, but without any significant supplies of food or water.
FEMA did finally get to Staten Island, but not because of anything done by President Obama. My guess is that Senator Schumer threw a full-fledged hissy fit after being embarrassed on national television:
I wonder if anyone in the main stream media realizes something. There was not one single documented death from dehydration after Hurricane Katrina. This is because FEMA had pre-positioned food and water at both the New Orleans Superdome and the New Orleans Convention center. It just may be that FEMA did a lot better during Hurricane Katrina than it did during Hurricane Sandy. The following article from realclear politics does an excellent and balanced job of reporting what really happened during Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/katrina_what_the_media_missed.html
President Bush may gain significantly if there is an “honest” comparison with how FEMA responded to Katrina and how FEMA responded to Sandy. President Obama did a great job with photo stops after Sandy, but in terms of actually helping people he doesn’t appeared to have delivered on his promises.
The real lesson we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina is that the last thing we need during a disaster is a bunch of grandstanding politicians trying to micro-manage. After Hurricane Katrina, when the first responders communicated with each other without the help of publicity hungry politicians they got things done. When the politicians got involved there was just a lot of arguing, finger pointing and chaos.
In terms of actually helping people, the best decision George Bush ever made was to not visit New Orleans during the early hours after the storm. His reason for staying away is that he did not want to interfere with those brave first responders who were involved in the greatest rescue operation in the history of the world. He was highly criticized by the main stream media for this decision, but I suspect historians will be far more objective.
The good news is that those politicians who try to exploit these situations for political gain frequently end up with just a lot of egg on their face.
Initially, Hurricane Sandy created a little surged for Obama, but now that has turned into an Ebb Tide that may just sweep him out of office.
TDM