Obama Fails the 'Katrina' Test

If you remember the criticisms of the Federal response to Katrina, one of the biggest things was the claims that the Federal Government (President Bush) was "Slow" to respond to the disaster, as thousands of people were living without power and proper living conditions. It seems that there must be a double standard in the main stream media when it comes to the coverage of this kind of news. When it's poor blacks who are the victims, it's national headlines. When it's just plain old regular white Americans, well I guess no one cares. President Bush signed a $10.5 billion relief package within four days of the hurricane. Within 1-2 days of the hurricane, National Guard Troops arrived with relief of food, water, and medicine, and participated in security and rescue operations.

Let's see now that Obama is in charge? A week (Feb 2nd) after the Ice Storm hit the Midwest, particularly Kentucky, is barely getting any federal help. 55 people dead, where was the federal response? As of Friday (Feb. 6th), FEMA says that they are "Coordinating efforts".
Don't get me wrong, I'm not really critisizing Obama, I am however, critisizing the mainstream Media. It seems that when the subject is something that they want to make a big deal of, like the Nations Poor, they will find a way to do it and in a way "generate" their own story. I remember down here in Florida, when Hurricane Andrew hit, it was 5 days before we saw the National Guard, vs in Luisianna it was only 3 days. Weeks had passed before the feds came in with any real help, whereas in Luisiana Bush signed a bill within just 4 days. Jack Kelly wrote a great article about the Federal response to Katrina, where he highlights:

... "The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world histor." ....

He goes on to point out:

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

Truth is, the local mostly Democrat government was much more to blame than Bush was, yet this was never really pointed out by the Agenda driven media.

If Obama had been measured by the same yardstick used to measure Bush, he would have definitely have failed the "Katrina Test".