New Orleans Times-Picayune
By James Gill
October 14, 2009
knack for peace, but around here his forte seems to be stirring up
strife…
The Mississippi Gulf Coast is mad because New Orleans gets all the
attention…
And from southwest Louisiana comes the cry, ‘What about Rita, Gustav
and Ike? ...’
Obama is also being denounced for an apparent lack of curiosity about
the incredible shrinking wetlands…
Congressman Steve Scalise called a press conference at the 17th Street
Canal in Lakeview to declare, in an authentically New Orleans
metaphor, that his constituents deserved more than a ‘drive-through
daiquiri summit.’
Meanwhile, the local director of ACORN has been fired after some of
its members berated Obama for failing to schedule a stop in the Lower
9th. The White House promptly added the school visit to Obama's
itinerary, but ACORN's national leadership, in what it delicately
terms ‘a time of severe challenge for us,’ decided that locals cannot
be allowed to speak ill of the president…
As goodwill trips go, tomorrow's is not shaping up as a roaring
success, and maybe fewer noses would be out of joint if Obama had just
stayed in Washington. He has plenty to fill his time there, and it is
hard to see the point of a making a trip that is universally panned as
meaningless and perfunctory…
Still, a quick visit to a school, plus a ‘town hall,’ orchestrated or
otherwise, are hardly enough to demonstrate a commitment to the cause
of recovery. The White House had to work really hard to contrive a
public relations disaster of this magnitude. The whole Katrina zone
suspects it has received the brush-off.
But since Louisiana didn't vote for Obama anyway, maybe he has little
to lose politically…”
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