Inane Katrina comparison of the day
May 05, 2010 2:00 pm ET by Jamison Foser
The Washington Post's Karen Tumulty:
Barack Obama's presidency has not lacked for crises. But the two that have dominated this week -- a spreading environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a failed car bombing that narrowly missed creating carnage in Times Square -- have produced a delicate challenge of management and message at a moment when the country's mistrust of government is running high.
...
Handled right, these two crises have the potential to restore an increasingly skeptical public's faith in Obama, much the way that President Bill Clinton's handling of the Oklahoma City bombing did in 1995. Bungled, either or both could go down as his administration's Hurricane Katrina.
So now an attempted bombing in which nobody died has potential to turn into Obama's Katrina? Yeah, right.
Later, Tumulty acknowledges that Republicans, who don't tend to be bashful about criticizing the president, have not been doing so:
Meanwhile, Republicans -- who made "Drill, baby, drill" their mantra during the 2008 election -- have largely refrained from any criticism of how the administration is handling the crisis. The exception has been the demand for more federal aid by some of the same Southern lawmakers who have often pegged Obama as an avatar of Big Government.
Similarly, Obama's handling of the failed bombing has brought little criticism from the opposition party.
Maybe so, but George Pataki is apparently floating their talking points for the coming months: Obama's failure to continue the "enhanced interrogations" and unwarranted wiretaps have made us "less safe".
Apparently their goal is to create the impression that hoards of swarthy terrorists are descending upon us because they know they won't be waterboarded.