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I didn't know when I wrote this that the New York Times had a similar piece today. But the more voices the better. My column is also available online at: www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/09/01/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt
comments welcomed!
Here is the text:
MODS: I wrote this column and have reprint permission
President's response slow
By Rich Lewis, September 01, 2005
When we talk about Hurricane Katrina, our thoughts must go first to the human suffering and the heartbreaking tasks of counting the dead and comforting the living.
But loud and persistent questions about why the federal government, and President Bush in particular, were so slow to respond to the disaster suggest Katrina may have long-term political consequences as broad as the swath of coast she devastated.
The storm roared ashore Sunday night and the initial effects were known by midday Monday. Then, on Tuesday, we learned the levees in New Orleans had collapsed and the city was drowning. On Wednesday, we were hammered all day with grim details of the flooding.
Yet, President Bush did not address the nation about Katrina until 5 p.m. on Wednesday — more than 48 hours after the storm struck, and more than 24 hours after New Orleans was destroyed. Bush didn't even look at the stricken area until a few hours before the speech — and not from the ground, but from an airplane window.
Despite the horrors being addressed, the speech was curiously flat and passionless.
For example, the president's first words were, "I've just received an update from Secretary Chertoff and other Cabinet secretaries involved on the latest developments in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama."
Now that's what those of us in the newspaper business call a weak lead.
Bush later stumbled through a laundry list of things the federal government had supplied so far — 5.4 million of this, 13.4 million of that — with no sense of what it all meant.
His total "motivational message" for boosting contributions to the Red Cross and other relief organizations was this: "It's important for those who want to contribute, to contribute cash."
Not exactly the kind of soaring rhetoric that sends people running for their wallets.
In contrast, Bush spoke to the nation less than 12 hours after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
That speech began: "Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were... secretaries, business men and women, military and federal workers, moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended.... The pictures...have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger."
That's powerful stuff, even in this edited form. And, with a few changes, the eloquent sentiments would have been appropriate in talking about Katrina. In fact, Katrina did vastly more damage than the terrorists — and may take more lives.
Mayor Ray Nagin says the number of dead in New Orleans alone is "most likely, thousands." Tens of thousands survived but lost everything; many now lack adequate food, water, medicines and other basic necessities; they face months of deprivation and uncertainty.
And though New Orleans gets the most attention, other areas in Mississippi and Louisiana sustained equally appalling losses.
So why was the president's response to Katrina so late and and so lame? Why didn't he don that famous "flight jacket" and get his boots on the ground?
The president had two missions — send help, and use his voice to raise the spirits of the victims and inspire the rest of the nation to action. The federal response to Katrina has been slow, disorganized and ineffective. Wednesday's plodding speech touched no one. Missions unaccomplished.
A number of Bush's political opponents are suggesting the president doesn't really care about Katrina's victims. They say he goes full bore on politically profitable issues like terrorism, national security and war, but is indifferent about putting his energy behind the hurricane relief effort because he sees no big political payoff.
Judging from what little the president has said about Katrina, and how long it took him to say it, you have to wonder. If the levees in New Orleans had been blown open by terrorists, don't you think the president would have been on television immediately, delivering a speech for the ages, and launching a full-scale federal rescue effort?
Well, after all, this was just the weather.
Liberal lunacy? Maybe. But even Bush's staunchest allies are questioning his lack of concern.
Yesterday, the ultra-conservative Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader slammed the president on just these points. First, the editorial ripped Bush for taking time to give a political speech in San Diego on Tuesday (about terrorism, war and national security, of course) "as if nothing important had happened the day before."
Then the paper really unloaded:
"A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease," the paper wrote.
"The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty."
The president faces no more elections, but backlash from the failed response to the storm may well be aimed at his party instead. If so, future Republican candidates may be Katrina's last victims — done in not by wind and water, but by votes.
Rich Lewis' e-mail address is:
rlcolumn@comcast.net
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