President Obama Nods Towards New Orleans
"I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers, and rubble, and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world."
So said Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondent's Association. The object of his sarcasm was of course President George W. Bush, who just months earlier had brought flood lights to Jackson Square in New Orleans, to proclaim live on television, “This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.” No one really believed him. Bush had, at that point, been saying reassuring things for weeks, as the flood waters rose, the death toll mounted, and thousands of people found themselves abandoned. His government's failure was so complete that even his biggest presidential move--a prime time address--looked like a stunt, a photo op, a reaffirmation of all that had gone wrong in the first place.
So what of our current president, who holds no blame for the bungled response in 2005? In February of 2008, Obama went to Tulane University and promised to right Bush's wrongs. "No more Brownie, no more heads of the Arabian horses association in charge of FEMA," he said.
Since then, under pressure from new crises, Obama has not made much of the New Orleans recovery, at least in public by himself. But that does not mean he has ignored it. Senior administration officials have made regular trips to the still embattled city, focusing on how to speed reconstuction. "I would say what they have demonstrated in this first year is a low-key but genuine commitment to accelerate the business of recovery, " Amy Liu, deputy director of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, recently told the Times Picayune.
Others have been less generous in their praise. The Institute for Southern Studies polled over 50 community groups in the Gulf Coast to find out how well Obama was doing in addressing the Katrina delivery. He got mostly D grades, which is what Bush got from the same group, though Obama got more D+ grades and Bush got more D- grades.
So how has Obama decided to respond? With a couple quick events Thursday, a charter school visit and a Town Hall. He will be on the ground in Louisiana for a scheduled 3 hours and 45 minutes, before jetting off to a fundraiser in San Francisco. Not exactly a lit city square in prime time, but the comparisons to Bush have arrived anyway. This week, in the White House Briefing Room, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs did his best to push back:
Don't judge anybody on the amount of time that they've spent there. Judge only what this administration promised they would do, what they've done every day, and what they're continuing to work on. We feel enormously confident that if you judge us on that, that we'll come out well compared—not just compared to previous efforts, but more importantly, tangible improvements in the rebuilding and in the lives of people that stayed there.
As of August, nearly four years after the hurricane, the Brookings institution found that 152,904 households receiving mail in Orleans Parish, compared with 198,232 before the storm and 133,966 two years later. Some 62,557 homes stand vacant or abandoned. The work is in other words not yet done. And the people of New Orleans hope that the Thursday Obama visit will represent much more than just another photo op.
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1
This is one area where I'm very disappointed in Obama.
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How quickly everyone has forgotten the blame the GOP heaped upon the unfortunate victims of that debacle in order to divert attention from the embarrassment they engendered around the entire world.
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I strongly suggest a deeper brand of journalism on this. Forgetfulness is a condition. Omission is a fault...-
1.1
Ditto on this. Obama needs to be held accountable for his campaign promises. Maybe less tea bagger and Glenn Beck cover stories, and more on festering wounds like Katrina that Obama promised to heal but hasn't made enough progress on yet.
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Or, we could debate what Rush Limbaugh thinks about him. One or the other. -
1.2
On other item he missed is the fact that there is still a large Black diaspora, numbering over 100,000.
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Now that is one hell of an omission, Micheal...
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2
My fav passage from Colbert's brilliant performance:
"Over the last five years you people were so good, over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.
But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!"
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2.1
The passage you quoted is my fav, too, JC. With a special heaping of scorn on the last sentence:
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"You know...fiction!
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3
How like Time: Use the famous Colbert speech -- which Time and every other media outlet completely ignored until forced -- to bludgeon Obama.
Because really, isn't every Bush failure actually Obama's?
Well done, Mr. Scherer. You remain in the The Club.
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3.1
Good point, evietoo. People like Richard Cohen, who Michael Scherer aspires to be someday, criticized Colbert as rude and unfunny, back when it mattered. Now that the cult of centrism has caught up with where public opinion about Bush was in 2005, it's perfectly politically correct to quote Colbert's speech as canonical.
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Because when the Republicans are in office, the official party line of punditry is that the Democrats musn't be too aggressive and risk alienating the GOP. And when the Democrats are in power, the party line is that the Democrats musn't risk alienating the GOP.
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So critiques of Bush are ignored... until they can be turned on a Democratic president.
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4
I'm not sure I think that repopulating New Orleans ought to be considered an important goal. Certainly any vacant properties need to be safe, and secure and anyone who chooses to go back deserves help in recovering their own property and the surrounding neighborhoods but the danger that accompanies living below sea level isn't going away anytime soon. If there are 48,000 fewer households living there now than before, then we should accept that the 'market' has spoken.
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4.1
I'm with Dirks. Here's a good piece on the absurdity of fed. flood insurance:
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http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Insurance/story?id=94181
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Reminds me of folks choosing to build mansions in fire-prone wilderness areas, then demanding that firefighters risk their lives to save them.
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5
Wholly crap Michael. You can really write. When its too late.
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6
So what exactly do you want him to do in three hours, Michael? Dig some drainage?
This is just a mid week fluff piece which has become too regular on Swampland. No measurable facts, just plenty of empty assertions.
No wonder Al - Jazeerah is the becoming the most respected cable news channel wherever it chooses to compete.
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7
I think there is two sides to the story in terms of the administration's recovery efforts. While it is undoubtedly true that Obama himself has not, and probably will not, spend much time in New Orleans to spotlight recovery efforts, as you pointed out, many in his administration has been working behind the scenes to streamline the process -- he even got a shot out from Jindal for what they have done since they have been in office.
So my question is how has Obama not kept his promises? He didn't appoint a "Brownie" to head FEMA, he appointed an expert that received universal plaudits for his track record. And even though the recovery hasn't progressed at the speed in which some would like, the administration has in fact tried to move the process along and has made progress.
I'm an outsider looking in, so I certainly can't speak to the residents' frustration, but did people really expect for this admin to move mountains overnight?
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7.1
So, now "trying" to move the process along is praiseworthy? Many president's have "tried" to make something happen without the results the public wanted. They were in turn, roundly criticized. However, Obama's hero worship seems to cancel it out. Will it last his entire term? Probably, he is being judged on people's personal feelings of him and given a pass for his bad decisions. I wonder if they will feel the same when the runaway inflation his printing of money to pay for everything starts to eat into their pocketbooks. Probably not. They will then just encourage him to print even MORE money our children will have to pay for, as long as they get their handout. Government is more often the hinderance to finding a solution than it is a conduit for said solution.
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7.2
You're clearly living in the past. Borrowing from the Chinese at record low interest rates is significantly different than printing money and carries a significantly different sort of risk. Applying yesterday's slogans to tomorrow's problems is not a particularly effective way to stay relevant.
Deficit spending IS a problem. Everybody who does it learned their chops from St. Reagan. -
7.3
Actually yes Lawchic. That's what the great one does. Moves mountains, calms the seas(except then) causes the blind to see......etc. etc
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7.4
xxception, 2/3rds of a nut:
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The entire planet saw. It wasn't pretty.
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I think now that there is a new administration in place, I don't think trying to venture outside of FOXworld with your idiocy will do much more than get you a bobblehead "huh?".
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When you grow up, and realize that your fellow right wing feces can't heap blame and scorn on the victims of the Katrina debacle instead of accepting responsibility for your failures, then come talk about Katrina.
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Until then, you have absolutely nothing of value to contribute in any rational overview of the disaster whatsoever! -
7.5
"Government is more often the hinderance to finding a solution than it is a conduit for said solution.
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Of course, xxception!
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This was exactly why Karl Rove was put in charge of post-Katrina operations.
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How could we forget!
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8
"the comparisons to Bush are have arrived anyway."
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Who have are been making them? -
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[...] the original post here: President Obama Nods Towards New Orleans – Swampland – TIME.com Share and [...]
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10
I heard someone from NO say that the federal people now working there are getting much more done than before. As lawchic pointed out, even (no stimulus money for me) Jindahl had praise for this administration. In addition, they are studying ways to restore the wetlands - which is one of the big reasons NO was flooded plus the Army Corp of Eng failed dikes.
Years - even before Katrina - of incompetence have not been corrected in nine months, well let's join the movement to impeach Obama.
Michael, there are a lot of more substantial ways to report this story as others have pointed out.
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11
He can start with the economic zone declared around New Orleans that froze the Diaspora out of any chance whatsoever of getting jobs in the reconstruction effort.
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Go to the following just to taste that decisions' damage:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._minimum_wage_legislation/Senate_amendments_to_H.R.2
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There is far, far more damage than just this that the GOP inflicted on an already terrible situation... -
12
A rhetorical question:
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Just how much does Micheal Scherer want us to forget? -
13
What happened in NO was awful and completely preventable. Photo ops only help when they are followed by resources and an army of help.
But if photo ops are all Obama has, it sure would be nice for the President to travel a few miles east and get his picture taken in Waveland or Bay St. Louis in Mississippi. Don't know if the president has heard but Katrina hit there, too.
And despite Louisiana politicians' claims that Mississippi's coastal recovery has been over-funded and is now complete, it's still a mess down there. The kind of damage there is different than in NO, but it exists AND persists.
- michaelscherer Ah.... Richard Wolffe. - 3 hours ago
- michaelscherer AP Fact Checks Obama's speech: http://bit.ly/5OR9ph - 3 hours ago
- michaelscherer RT @AlexKoppelman: "I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again." Obama joining 9/12 Project! - 4 hours ago
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