Classic Trump: It’s been a tremendous state for me... It’s very important that I was here...
Here's some detail about Trump's trip, surveying the damage and interacting with people on the ground.
Trump is quite different from George W. Bush, who, after Katrina hit Louisiana, chose to view the damage from the seat of his airplane. He got blasted for looking detached and uncaring. He wrote about it in his book "Decision Points":
I’ve often reflected on what I should have done differently that day. I believe the decision not to land in New Orleans was correct. Emergency responders would have been called away from the rescue efforts, and that would have been wrong. A better option would have been to stop at the airport in Baton Rouge, the state capital. Eighty miles north of the flood zone, I could have strategized with the governor and assured Katrina victims that their country stood with them. Landing in Baton Rouge would not have saved any lives. Its benefit would have been good public relations. But public relations matter when you are president, particularly when people are hurting. When Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans in 1965, Lyndon Johnson flew in from Washington to visit late at night. He made his way to a shelter in the Ninth Ward by flashlight. “This is your president!” he called out when he arrived in the dark and crowded space. “I’m here to help you!” Unfortunately, I did not follow his example.You've got to take the consequences of modesty and restraint. You may hear it lauded many years after you serve in office, when your old job is occupied by a man who's chosen not to follow your model of modesty and restraint. How does that make you feel, seeing how much those people who hated on you are hating the new guy for being the opposite of you?
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Bush was always content to be judged by history, which made the job of his supporters much harder and reduced his impact. He left his defenders to twist in the wind too many times and was less consequential a president for it. If not for the WTC attacks, he would be as forgettable as his father.
He should have publicly pressured the leftie governments who resisted the Federal relief. Forced their hand. Laying back and decrying they didn't follow the procedures was a failure of leadership.
Nobody would have cared if you landed there or not...
"How does that make you feel, seeing how much those people who hated on you are hating the new guy for being the opposite of you?
Perhaps he, GW, can take some comfort from the fact that the haters don't hate him personally. Their hate is manufactured to be directed at a political opponent for political gain.
Louisiana folks are great strategic thinkers. They follow winners and reject losers. Bad Orange Man is “perceptive” enough to be a great leader one more time. And we thank God that he is on our side, and is not another Bush family phony.
The "for me" is friendlier by establishing a connection. They have reciprocal ownership of each other.
Maybe GW was just more full of fear and indifference and lacked empathy and kindness.... like most politicians
Classic Trump: It’s been a tremendous state for me... It’s very important that I was here...
When the president does it, the press is already going to personalize it.
Knowing they’re terrible at their jobs, Trump is already helping them write their copy.
"How does that make you feel, seeing how much those people who hated on you are hating the new guy for being the opposite of you?"
The question that occurred to me was, can't everyone see that ANY decision by a Republican will be harshly criticized?
The party motto, per MSM, seems to be damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Gwb thinks that since people seem to hate his successor more than they hated him, history has justified him. Don't worry man, no matter what kind of president you are and no matter what kind of successor you had, they would have hated him more than they hated you. Just like the next Republican president, whomever he or she may be, will be hated more than Trump is now.
"How does that make you feel, seeing how much those people who hated on you are hating the new guy for being the opposite of you?"
Hate really is the stock and trade of one of the political parties. Don't give me that tired trope that both sides do it. It's not nearly of the same magnitude. Democrats often say it's because of the hate they believe started on the other side (racism, sexism, homophobia etc.). Someone is spreading those ugly lies, fomenting hatred in order to gain political power. The Democrat hatred has now broken out into the streets. All that hate is one of the main reasons that I no longer Vote Democrat.
"Bush was always content to be judged by history"
Which now confirms his bad judgment, which looked weak then and weakened him politically, and looks worse in retrospect.
In politics, politics matters. Classy Bush couldn't be bothered to play the game. Trump at least tries, though awkwardly at times.
They hate Trump for the same reason they hated W.: both are Republicans, and both resist their drive for totalitarian power.
As a Gulf resident: in the aftermath of a hurricane, who the hell cares if the president is there or not? Are you bringing functioning air conditioning or drivable streets? If not, don't waste my time. Linemen have value. Presidents, not at all.
That said, it was kinda cool to look up from gathering yard debris after Hurricane Harvey and watch Air Force One fly over my house.
I love New Orleans. Haven't been there in a few years, but best restaurant scene ever. Mmmm. Bananas Foster at Anyoine's. Haven't really visited other parts of the state - what's Baton Rouge like?
Oh yeah, President Bush. Nice guy, not too bright. Thought we could invade Middle East countries and convert them into democracies. Terribly naive, no? Muslim countries don't want democracies, they want oil money and/or Sharia law.
Trump is 20X better than Bush in almost every category.
Democrats will label ALL Republicans as NAZIS and will be vilified no matter what you do. So do what is best for your country and yourself and f'them.
Trump knows from construction that the boss has to show his face at the site sometimes.
"How does that make you feel, seeing how much those people who hated on you are hating the new guy for being the opposite of you?"
I'd have said "despite" being the opposite.
The fact that Democrats level the same attacks against people as different as George Bush, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, and Rand Paul makes it clear that the substance of the attack has nothing to do with the target's character, beliefs, or policies.
Shrub II was filthy Koch-sucking Rove Republican swill, just like his daddy before him. Yes, he towered over "Chocolate City" Nagin and Guv'nor Blanco, but that didn't take much. He was every bit as much One World Government sewage as every other president since Reagan has been, with the exception of the current one!!!
"Classic Trump???"
One of the biggest reasons Trump succeeded in 2016 was his ability to make the average American feel like he, a billionaire TV star playboy, was with them, like it was "us" instead of "me" - a huge (yuuge) change from the Obama years. I suspect that most of his Louisiana speech was "us" and not "me."
Just read the transcript - I was right, Trump very graciously acknowledges all of the federal and state officials, asks the mayors of many towns how they and their towns are doing (and addressing each by name, no matter how small the town), praising the FEMA folks for their hard work, etc. That is "classic Trump."
President Richard Nixon visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1969 after Hurricane Camille. He was rewarded in his re-election by that district three years later with the highest percentage of favorable votes.
Bay Area Guy, my feelings for New Orleans is the opposite. To me New Orleans is a city where the streets smell like urine and if the restaurant is not over priced it will give you food poisoning. Being known for having drunk woman showing their breasts for cheap beads is not a way to build a great city. Fun place to go if your a partying frat boy but not a place you want to be to conduct business.
Trump can be an ass, but at least he says what he thinks without waiting for the internal polls to come in. Basement Biden still has not condemned the hunting down and murder of a man in Portland last night. Focus groups take time.
Ah Dubya. Your two successors have been afflicted with the eye disease---as in I'm important.
I, me, my and mine were the four most important words in Obama's vocabulary--and Trump is not far behind in that regard.
So, GWB's explanation for his Katrina PR disaster is that he was just too gosh darn responsible to concern himself with the grubby business of appearances. What a surprise.
Mike
For those that have forgotten or never knew this, here are some reminders.
Over one hundred billion dollars had been spent on dikes to protect New Orleans from a hurricane during the preceding century. The specific dike that failed had been repaired just two years before. The national media decided that this was not news and not interesting.
The hurricane actually New Orleans and hit Mississippi. New Orleans should have been okay.
There was a dramatic difference in the effectiveness of the aid effort mounted by the governments of Mississippi (Republican) and Louisiana (Democrat) after the hurricane. In particular much of the actual aid came from private actors (encouraged and facilitated by the government) in Mississippi while in contrast Louisiana blocked non-state actors from going into New Orleans. The national media barely discussed this.
Law and order broke down in New Orleans after the hurricane. Allegedly the city had an ugly atmosphere. There was looting. There were home invasions. There may have been much more than that. I suspect that the motivation for the state of Louisiana to block private aid conveys (Walmart, for one) from getting into New Orleans was at bottom political -- as in, the nation would have been horrified if attention had been directed to what was really going on in New Orleans. The national media worked hard to suppress this story.
President Bush phoned the mayor of New Orleans urging him to evacuate the city two days before the hurricane hit. He was ignored.
About eighty-five percent of the population of New Orleans, those that had cars or who had friends that had cars, evacuated twelve hours before Katrina's landfall.
Katrina missed New Orleans, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. But communications had been knocked out. It was two days, or something like that, before the scope of the disaster (a dike failing that shouldn't have failed) became clear.
Four years and ten dats ago there were serious floods in Louisiana. My recollection was that then-President Barack Obama had to be shamed into interrupting his vacation to visit the disaster scene. A couple minutes’ research on Google confirmed that recollection.
Let's not pretend it would have mattered. The media would have said exactly the same things no matter what he did.
We heard complaints that President Trump came to Puerto Rico in 2017 after Hurricane Maria. I don't know how much practical good it did.
I do think it was a morale booster. I do think it showed that we were part of the US and he, at least, recognized that and would not forget us.
People forget that 3 years later we are still finding emergency supplies in pr govt warehouses. People forget the hundreds of large generators that were still sitting, unguarded, on pier 4 3 months after the storm.
People forget that Clinton never visited after Georges in 98 or Bush after Hugo in 89.
Good for President for showing up.
John Henry
When anyone can write the mainstream press story before an event happens, maybe the story isn't all that close to the reality of the event.
"Trump aggrandizes self during hurricane site visit" for when Trump visits.
"Trump ignores hurricane victims" for when Trump doesn't visit.
"Trump still an evil subhuman" if he visits secretly.
Here's hoping those on the ground in the path of the storm have a speedy recovery.
A lot of the money that was supposed to repair that dike was instead used to build parking lots for floating casinos. New Orleans =corruption.
The worst aspect of the problem was the "MRGO" project that altered the Mississippi delta to leave a straight shot for hurricanes.
Bush got sucked into the same foreign policy black hole that they hate Trump for resisting.
Colin Powell got famous with the Gulf War, was GWB's Secretary of State, stabbed him in the back and created the Plame fiasco, and then went on to endorse every Democrat that ran for POTUS (although not sure about Hillary. He let his "leaked" emails speak for him there).
Obama had no foreign policy except to do whatever Brennan wanted him to do. Obama and Biden got us involved in wars all over the ME while we sent billions in cash to Iran while they were killing our guys in Iraq. And now Trump really isn't into war in the ME and the foreign NSA types hate him for it. They pretend Trump is some sort of foreign policy disaster.
I don't know what to make of any of it.
The very definition of,"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
Classic Trump: It’s been a tremendous state for me... It’s very important that I was here...
Actually, that's very true. People forget that in September, 2016 there was massive flooding in parts of Louisiana. There was little or no response from the Obama administration, or if there was it did not make the news. What did make the news was the "Cajun Navy", people with small boats from all over the Gulf Coast who went in of their own volition and rescued trapped people.
What was also notably missing was any acknowledgement of the situation from the Hillary! campaign. There was, however, a response from the Trump campaign. Trump and Pence both with to Louisiana with a truck load of relief supplies. Even though it was a photo op, I've always believed that that simple gesture was enough to convince a lot of people that they would be safer and better off with Trump in the White House than they would ever be with Hillary!.
I'm reading some books on the Bush II presidency and he seemed obsessed with "Not being political" and not caring about the Polls and public opinion. He just wanted to "do what's right". Which translated means: "Do what I want, regardless".
That's why we got an endless, needless Iraq war, Harriet Miers, a financial crisis, TARP bailout, deals with Teddy Kennedy, and a Bush program of Amnesty and Social Security "Reform".
Usually when a President brags about how they ignored public Opinion and "Did the right thing", they're a loser.
They pretend Trump is some sort of foreign policy disaster.
I don't know what to make of any of it.
Yup, and Mattis is so brilliant that he bought into the whole Theranos scam and wanted to buy the vaporware for the whole US military. Great minds.
I'd have more respect for Bush if he'd truly "retired from politics" and shut up after he left office. But of course, that wasn't the case. He never criticized Obama, but was taking not so veiled shots at Trump, for not being a globalist or supporting illegal immigration (Brown babies in cages!).
As i stated, I been reading about his presidency, and had forgotten that Bush was so unpopular in 2008, McCain didn't want Bush campaigning for him or even speaking at the Convention. Eventually Bush made a deal to make a short speech via TV, on Monday. Then it was goodbye Bush! Cheney was cut all together, and wasn't invited by speak at Romney's convention either.
Finally, i thought Bush was unfairly criticized over Katrina, but by 2006 I was past giving a damn. Bush II never fought back, so my attitude was "when Bush starts caring, I'll care"
Bush was too restrained in domestic affairs and not restrained enough in foreign ones.
History has shown us that W was a weak, if not piss poor, leader. He had no understanding of how to connect with people. The product of a privileged upbringing and a sheltered adulthood.
@mayBee It really is amusing that the "foreign policy establishment" is so upset that Trump has avoided having US bodies falling like flies all over the ME. But then most of them can't read a map to see that moving US armed forces from the rear in Germany to the front lines in Poland makes a lot of sense.
Narcissism: Orange is the new Black.
Anyone want to guess how often trump in his book will upon reflection conclude that he should have done something different? Hint. < 1
I have a file of photos and video from W’s presidency that show the ugliest and most hateful images of and statements about him from marches/protests. Scenes of hangings, bullet holes through his head, targets on his head, chimp images superimposed on him. Any one of them had it been Obama would have gotten someone arrested by the Secret Service or pilloried.
When Trump was elected, Bill Maher said he regretted that he and his fellow lefties called W, McCain, Romney, Dole, and Reagan Nazis and fascists because now they REALLY need that rhetoric for Trump and the impact is lost. W turned the other cheek out of some patrician sense of noblesse oblige. Trump, God bless his white cotton socks, gives as good (or better) as he gets. That’s why the progs are so inflamed. They’re not used to being pushed back.
The lefties are nasty little shits.
- Krumhorn
Empathy.
The Classic Trump quote that caught my eye: "Trump was asked, again, in Texas about the connection of climate change to the hurricane. 'We've had tremendous storms in Texas for many decades and for many centuries and that's the way it is,' he said. 'We handle them as they come. All I can do is handle them as they come and that's what we do and nobody has ever done a better job of it.' "
Reminds me of the lectures by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (founder of the TM movement) and his advice for dealing with life: "Take it as it comes" and "Be bold."
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with 27,000 square miles (70,000 km2) inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (9 m). To try to prevent future floods, the federal government built the world's longest system of levees and floodways.
Ninety-four percent of more than 630,000 people affected by the flood lived in the states of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, most in the Mississippi Delta.
In some places, I recall reading, the river was 20 miles wide.
Herbert Hoover was then Secty of Commerce. He spent 3-4 months pretty much full time, living on a train, roaming up and down the flood ravaged area helping organize relief.
He was uniquely qualified to do this. An extremely successful engineer and head of one of the world's largest mining concerns, former minister of resources in China, responsible for feeding much of Europe during WWI, first as a private citizen, later as a dollar a year US govt employee. He was credited with saving more than 20mm civilians from starvation during and after the war.
Vernon Kellogg's 1920 bio has a great first hand account.
As the song goes "Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again"
I think President Trump would be qualified to do something similar based on his previous experience. But we can't afford to lose him from the White House.
John Henry
@Maybee, bottom line: Trump is right, Mattis was wrong.
I wonder whether he realizes that?
@NorthOfTheOneOhOne, I had forgotten about Trump and Pence showing up with supplies. But I did remember Obama needing to be shamed into visiting. That's because Democrats were arguing that even on vacation Obama was "working on the People's business," yet he didn't want to leave Martha's Vineyard for people who needed him.
Its a mugs game trying to do the right thing with today's media. I'm sure GW thought it was the right thing to do not tying up resources to help the hurricane victims but all it did was give Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid another cudgel to beat him with that he didn't care. I'm sure this is what Trump was thinking the entire time as the Hurricane unfolded.
Trump is just playing the game as it stands today like the Allied forces of W.W. I lobbing phosphine gas shells back at the German army in 1916. They didn't start using gas first but they would be damned if they did't respond in kind.
Q to ponder (- what I thought even then) - how many USA soldier lives could have been saved if Obama had simply doxxed Osama - let the Pakistan ISI handle the fall-out
If I were GWB, I'd be miffed that they named the hurricane after his missus.
To succeed as a politician, you have to get credit for what you do right. Democrats get lot of praise for even the things they massively f*** up.
Trump gets no credit from anyone, even for extraordinary achievements (see e.g. latest Israel deal). So I give him a complete pass for his lack of humility. Would he likely still act like he does if he got some support from the press? Probably. But we can only deal with the reality that we have.
My impression was that George W. Bush was expecting the media to be reasonable and understand that his decision was based on good intentions. He was a fool to trust them. Either they were going to see the act as legitimately inappropriate or they were going to manufacture an outrage. The media was still pretending to be impartial at that point, but he really should have known better.
Skeptical Voter:
Try this trick: Add up each time that Trump mentioned himself. Then subtract from that amount for each time Trump mentioned "you".
Then do the same for Obama.
I’m happy to read these comments because I agree that W sucks. In fact I knew he was awful long before The Donald entered into the political arena. I also remember how many politically-correct conservatives used to call me a traitor who hates the American and the troops for making a lot of the exact same statements being made here today in the comments. Glad to be vindicated by history on that one.
teve uhr said...
Anyone want to guess how often trump in his book will upon reflection conclude that he should have done something different? Hint. < 1
The ankle biter weighs in.
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