Politics | 01/21/2009 11:10 am

Obama White House Website Takes Aim at Bush

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Barack Obama hasn’t exactly shied away from taking swipes at former President Bush and some of his policies. And no less than 24 hours in the White House, his official website continues that trend.

Politico points out that the new White House website unveiled by President Obama’s team Tuesday includes a shot at Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

Under the "agenda" portion of the site regarding Katrina (which can be found under "additional issues") it says:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur. President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s ‘unconscionable ineptitude’ in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims … [he] will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever."

Ouch. Bush obviously took a lot of heat for his handling of the post-Katrina cleanup, not least of which was his now-infamous, "Good job, Brownie" comment to then-FEMA administrator Michael Brown, who didn’t seem to have a clue. But Bush testily told reporters during his last press conference that some of that criticism was perhaps, misplaced.

"Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off their roofs after the storm was passed," Bush said, although admitting some things could have been done better. But "when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they gonna say to those chopper drivers" who rescued those 30,000 people?

The rescue operations were heroic, indeed, but more than three years later, we seem to be a long way off from being able to say the affected Louisiana and Mississippi regions are back to normal. Here’s hoping Obama’s administration can help get us there!

81 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

That’s what happens when unprepared political cronies are put in jobs they know nothing about. Right Brownie?

By f p on 01/21/2009 11:56 am

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Frank, You tell em! I’ll add to that - people who Don’t Care about other people. People who don’t give a (fill in the blank!). We should never forget Katrina. And never let it repeat. I know it won’t under Obama’s watch.

By N P on 01/21/2009 1:29 pm

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President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s ‘unconscionable ineptitude’ in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Amazing. We have natural disasters occuring all over the U.S. all the time. Recently, in the northeast we had an ice storm that knocked out power for not only days, but weeks. Trees crashed through roofs, roads impassable. Try that in the middle of January. Today, everything is back to normal for the majority. There are often killer floods in the midwest where you wonder how those people can carry on… but they do. Sure, FEMA made mistakes in NO, but I think a lot of money was poured into that city with unsubstantial results. That is the only disaster that we are still talking about. If there is going to be legislature …to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims, should there also be laws protecting low-income victims of ice-storms, and flood victims, and mud slide victims, etc.? I hope Obama is not going to seek good will by re-raking those coals.

By Marjorie C. on 01/21/2009 12:09 pm

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Amen, Marjorie! ‘Re-raking those coals’ will not increase forward progress, only continue unproductive partisan sniping. Definitely not the thing to do when there are still displaced people out there. Shame on you and your website, Mr. President!

By Green Tears on 01/21/2009 12:20 pm

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Marjorie I think you’re forgetting the money that was to be used for strengthening and repairing the levees in NOLA was withdrawn so Bush could wage his splendid little war in Iraq. The was the initial cause of the levees failures—had they been repaired as they should have been it’s very possible NOLA would have been spared the worst of the flooding if not all. Obama is not re-raking the coals—this is righting a great wrong. That in my book is how a nation takes care of it’s citizens.

By f p on 01/21/2009 1:11 pm

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f p: …this is righting a great wrong. Natural disasters occur regularly in the U. S. Generally, states take care of their own with a little help from the Feds in the form of Disaster Relief. Hurricane Katrina caused $82.2 billion in damages. That’s rather a staggering amount. The bill for Hurricane Ike was $31.5 billion so that was not a lightweight, either. Why is it we are still talking about 3-1/2 year old Katrina, and never hear any reporting on 4-month old Ike? Has Texas pitched in to right the great wrong of Hurricane Ike? About the levees, I pulled this off of Wikipedia (probably as realiable as any other source) The levee failures prompted investigations of their design and construction which belongs solely to the US Army Corps of Engineers as mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965. There is apparently a lot of blame to go around, some of which could even spread to the State of Louisiana. Hurricane advisors have been predicting for a long time, that a catergory 5 storm could wipe out NO… but the bands played on on Bourbon Street.

By Marjorie C. on 01/21/2009 2:15 pm

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Let me tell you about Ike, it is still here! People are still missing, there are schools that never re-opened on Boliver Island, the hospital in Galveston that employees made great efforts to get to turned around and layed them off because they are unable to afford to keep it going properly. Houston is pretty much together but any neighborhood you drive through has construction going on and so many people have had problems with the work that has been done. We do fight back in Texas, we also took in a lot of the Katrina people here in Houston but no we are not all Back from Ike and it takes more than what the community that gets hit can do for itself in any of these situations.

By Sandbee (FB) 54 on 01/21/2009 3:06 pm

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Sandbee: …we are not all Back from Ike… Do you think the Feds should have done more to prevent Ike from doing so much damage? Maybe build higher sea walls in anticipation? Because that seems to be what is at issue here. The Feds didn’t do enough to shore up the levees in NO in anticipation. I was in Galveston two weeks before Ike, I even saw the film footage of the great storm of September 1900 which my daughter-in-law insisted I see. When Ike struck, I couldn’t believe it. The sea walls helped tremendously, but Galveston took a real whack nonetheless. And Boliver just has no protection at all. …so many people have had problems with the work that has been done. Yeah, seems that always happens. The rip offs. The mismanagement of funds. Never fails. My daughter-in-law says she thinks Galveston will never be the same again, I hope she’s wrong, because I rather liked Galveston.

By Marjorie C. on 01/21/2009 4:31 pm

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I don’t think they can prevent most of the damage from hurricanes just like they can’t prevent damage from ice and snow storms - I’ve lived thru both now and don’t like either one - don’t imagine any sane person does. And there are always the people out there that try to make the money off the situation, sadly. Your daughter-in-law is probably at least somewhat right, certain parts of Galveston are just never going to be the same and it is a grand old place. Part of the problem with Ike was that the water came up down there even before the storm hit and people thought they had more time to leave than what it turned out was available. I do think the Federal government tried to get in here faster because of all the blame they receive for Katrina problems, if they were a lot of help I’m not sure. Everything was so hectic and so many groups were trying to do things that it was hard to tell. Everyone was doing there best and I can’t find fault with anyone here.

By Sandbee (FB) 54 on 01/21/2009 5:43 pm

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We still hear about Katrina for the same reasons people still talk about the Nazis when discussing torture and genocide. They both happen to be the best example of the subject matter at hand. That doesn’t mean that other examples are not appropriate, it’s just simply political short hand. In any case, it doesn’t matter whether diasters happen all the time or not. It really doesn’t matter who is to blame or not, as long as it is fixed. What matters is whether our response is reasonable regardless of the magnitude of the diaster. It’s entirely possible that we have a process in place which handles local diasters quite well, while at the same time failing at the large ones. And we’ve certainly failed with both Katrina and with Ike. This needs to be fixed. Why have a government at all if it doesn’t help with the welfare of its citizens when the sh!t hits the fan?

By R.J.B. Reed on 01/21/2009 4:35 pm

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R.J.B: This needs to be fixed. Well said, and I agree with your POV.

By Marjorie C. on 01/22/2009 12:44 pm

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Amen! This country needs to move forward, not backward. I did not vote for Obama, but he & congress need to look at the nations needs, not their own personal agendas.

By Maisy Roane on 01/21/2009 1:52 pm

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Help me here, Marjorie…I don;t recall bodies of dead people lying around in the streets to rot, after the ice storms, the mud slides, and the floods…..did I miss something?

By Patty E on 01/21/2009 3:47 pm

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Patty: I don;t recall bodies of dead people lying around in the streets to rot, I’m not sure what you are trying to say, but do you think it was up to the federal government to take care of the dead? How about the State government or neighboring parishes that were not affected as much pitching in? Up here in the north, we don’t rely on the Feds to do much for us, but we’re always happy to get disaster relief funds. I’ve never qualified for any, and that pleases me no end. These disasters were horrendous, there’s no way to minimize that. In Galveston, there are still people missing. Read Sandbee’s post.

By Marjorie C. on 01/21/2009 4:44 pm

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It has been 45 years since I lived in New Orleans. It might well have been the most wonderful and enlightening two years I ever spent. From what I witnessed watching them try to deal with Katrina convinced me not much has changed. I don’t know if the rest of the country can understand their political problems. they don’t trust anyone and justifiably so. The political structure was an amazing thing for me, a young woman from Oregon to witness. It was assumed all politicians were crooks. I watched a Governors election and the one candidate they were all worried about was the only one who hadn’t had a run in with the law. The others they understood. They knew what they wanted, this guy they couldn’t figure out. Of course he lost, they elected a crook. Cronysim was invented there. So when the Feds finally arrived they had to wade through that. That is no excuse but I hope offers some understanding. I feel so bad for the people there, because some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, I met there.

By beverly linens on 01/21/2009 5:50 pm