Suddenly, some are saying that the inept Katrina recovery was not “Bush’s fault” after all. Here’s an Associated Press headline from yesterday: Data show New Orleans recovery stalled under Nagin. Like we didn’t know that all along.
I wrote five years ago that a president’s traditional role in a hurricane was to declare a disaster area afterward. The request for disaster aid must come from the governor, but it was Bush who called the governor of Louisiana to ask why she hadn’t asked for disaster aid. And then there’s Nagin, the “Chocolate City” mayor, who left hundreds of buses untouched that could have conveyed people beyond the impact area.
So, why the sudden change in the media blamers? Blogger Dan Riehl suspects that the massively stalled New Orleans clean-up is so huge, and has gone on for so long, that Barack Obama may begin getting some blame for the ineptitude if it isn’t redirected to someone like the outgoing mayor.
