The President is lucky in one regard: He’s not George W. Bush or any other Republican, and so despite showing about as much empathy as Freddy Kreuger does while stalking a victim in a nightmare, he can count on the mainstream media to either ignore his failings entirely or spin them into some kind of success.
In 2005, President George W. Bush lost the little credibility remaining with the American people in what was seen as a completely botched and uncaring response to Hurricane Katrina. The President was slow to visit New Orleans – though not entirely without good reason – oddly choosing to fly over the ravaged city before landing, leaving the indelible image of the Commander in Chief far removed from the action, floating above wanton death and destruction, as though human suffering was beneath his elevated state. President Bush further tarnished his brand and damaged his cause when he finally deigned to get on the ground, committing one of the worst gaffes in recent memory. “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” he said, praising Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator, Michael D. Brown, who was just as widely seen as having botched the entire rescue effort. The phrase would go on to live in infamy as they say, prompting the media to revisit it ten years later. In August 2015, The Atlantic opined on “What ‘Brownie’ Regrets,” while USA Today questioned “Hurricane Katrina’s ‘Brownie’: Where is he now?” Today, the online Political Dictionary at politicaldictionary.com has a definition for the phrase, noting “The comment was widely criticized for its apparent lack of sensitivity to the plight of the hurricane’s victims and for its misplaced praise of a government official who was widely seen as having failed to respond effectively to the crisis.” The definition: “A ‘heck of a job’ is a complete and total screw-up. It’s used, ironically, to show when one’s view of a situation is in contradiction to easily-observed facts.” To be sure, some of this criticism was and remains unfair. There were significant issues at the local and state level that limited the administration’s actions until it was too late, not to mention a monster of the unprecedented storm itself. Certainly, things could have gone better, but the scope of the damage, death, and destruction meant that people were going to suffer no matter who was in office or in charge of FEMA. Politics, however, is rarely fair, and I remember watching the video in the aftermath, thinking to myself George W. Bush is lucky he never needs to run for office again because he’d be lucky to get a third of the vote anywhere in the country.
President Joe Biden is not so lucky as he gears up for next year’s campaign while facing what should certainly be his own Katrina moment over the response, or perhaps lack of a response would be more accurate, to the devastating fires that have destroyed huge swaths of Maui. The scale of the destruction is almost hard to fathom, writing this from almost half a world away. “This is unprecedented,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said at a news conference last week. “No one has ever seen this that is alive today. Not this size, not this number, not this volume — and we’re not done.” An accurate death toll may not be known for weeks or even months as officials sort through the charred remains, where the beach town of Lehaina, home of about 12,000, was almost entirely destroyed. Around 150 have been confirmed dead as of this writing, but 800 or more are still missing, and many of them are not expected to be found alive. “We’re still trying to take stock of who was in the area during the fire, who is missing,” explained Lynn Goldman, an epidemiologist and the dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. “We’re talking about people who lived in Lahaina, tourists, transients.” Lahaina itself, a seaside town of 12,000, was almost entirely destroyed, accounting for about 78% of the total burn area. Some of the dead might never be identified at all. “For individuals who die in mass fatalities from burning or an explosion, it can fragment the body, and very high temperatures can break down the DNA molecules, so it makes the identification process more difficult,” said Robert Mann, a forensic anthropologist and medical professor at the University of Hawaii, who is assisting in Maui. There remains at least some hope when “You can make an identification from one bone or one tooth. That one bone holds DNA in it.” With phone service restored, some residents are experiencing the joy of being reunited with their loved ones, but for many the tragedy is just beginning to unfold. The loss of life is accompanied by tremendous physical and hence economic damage. An initial estimate provided by Moody’s Analytics put the total between $3.5 and $7 billion, with property damage alone accounting for $3 to $6 billion and the remainder coming from lost output. Considering the entire Maui island has a total economic output of around $10 billion annually, this is a “very significant shock locally” in what can only be described as a candidate for understatement of the year from Moody’s own Adam Kamins, a senior regional economist. Mr. Kamins also noted this range is only preliminary, adding, “It’s pretty wide for reason, and we expect that as details become clearer, and we have a better sense as insurance assessors go in that we’ll know with more precision what the number is.” The situation might be much worse when you consider that approximately 75% of residents are employed in the tourism industry, and destroyed hotels mean no business for the foreseeable future, resulting in a classic death spiral on top of the human toll.
Incredibly, President Biden’s first public statement on the disaster was only two words, “No comment.” Two weeks ago, the President was busy vacationing in Rehoboth beach when an enterprising reporter finally asked him about the mounting death toll. “No comment,” was all the supposedly empathetic and compassionate “Scranton Joe” could muster before continuing with his own vacation while Americans suffered in the middle of another ocean. This from the man whose wife, Dr. Jill Biden, once proclaimed that “empathy” itself was on the ballot. Here, he showed precisely none (perhaps even less than he did in East Palestine, OH), but he was not done yet. About a week later, the administration announced their big plan to assist people affected by the fire: $700 total per household, take it or leave it. “FEMA has also authorized Critical Needs Assistance (CNA) which provides a onetime payment of $700 per household to applicants who were displaced from their homes and have critical needs. CNA provides for lifesaving and life-sustaining items such as water, food, prescriptions, personal hygiene items, and fuel for transportation,” they crowed while people sifted through the remains of their lives. Even at that late date, there were no plans for the President to visit the disaster area and see the destruction for himself. Instead, he planned to relocate his vacation from ritzy Rehoboth beach to the home of a billionaire, Tom Steyer, in California, continuing to relax and play as Americans continued to suffer. Needless to say, this wasn’t politically sustainable and late last week, the President finally decided to interrupt his vacation and visit Maui last Monday. Residents, angered by his perceived ignorance of their plight for well over a week, were not pleased, organizing protests to greet him including Trump signs and vulgar chants. Their scorn seemed even more well deserved after he finally arrived and proceeded to talk more about himself then about them. Apparently, he too once had a fire and it almost – yes, almost – destroyed his precious Corvette. In a statement that has to be read to believed, our supposedly empathetic Commander in Chief actually said this to those suffering. “I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, what it’s like to lose a home. Years ago — now 15 years ago — I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the Press.’ It was a sunny Sunday, and lightning struck at home on a little lake that’s outside of our home — not a lake, a big pond — and hit a wire and came up underneath our home into the heating ducts — the air conditioning ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette, and my cat. But all kidding aside, I watched the firefighters, the way they responded.” Internet sleuths were quick to point out that the story itself was grossly exaggerated and no one was actually in any danger, nor was his car. Reports at the time put it this way, “Lightning struck the home of Sen. Joseph Biden, starting a small fire that was contained to the kitchen.” Later in the day, some are saying he fell asleep at an event.
To recap, President Biden fails to respond at all to the most deadly wildfire in modern America, then says “no comment” as if he were a lawyer representing a drug dealer outside a courthouse, follows that up with a paltry $700 per family, and when he finally does arrive on the scene, he tells a false story about how he almost lost his fancy classic car and either fell asleep or at least dozed off at an important event. The President, however, is lucky in one regard: He’s not George W. Bush or any other Republican, and so despite having the worst possible response in the history of these responses and showing about as much empathy as Freddy Kreuger does while stalking a victim in a nightmare, he can count on the mainstream media to either ignore his failings entirely (CNN was focused on Trump was usual yesterday and today) or spin them into some kind of success. Even before the trip, they were planting the seed that the President is totally awesome at this, or as The Washington Post claimed, “Biden…has long been seen as uniquely adept at leading with empathy amid tragedies like this one.” Elsewhere, a reporter asked last Thursday, “Can you tell us about your Hawaii trip, sir?” “No, not now,” the President completely brushed her off. “I’m going to be leaving, and I’ll be there on Monday,” he said. The reporter actually responded with “Thank you, Mr. President” as if a non-answer was a favor. Supine doesn’t begin to describe it.
In fact, the media aren’t worried about President Biden or even the dead, instead they’ve settled on “climate gentrification” as a chief concern. Yes, the Associated Press actually ran an article “In Hawaii, concerns over ‘climate gentrification’ rise after devastating Maui fires.” “With a housing crisis that has priced out many Native Hawaiians as well as families that have been there for decades, concerns are rising that the state could become the latest example of ‘climate gentrification,’ when it becomes harder for local people to afford housing in safer areas after a climate-amped disaster.” Needless to say, there are experts in this sort of thing. The Associated Press introduced us to Jennifer Gray Thompson, CEO of After the Fire USA, a wildfire recovery and resiliency organization in the western U.S. She claimed Maui represents the “scariest opportunities for gentrification” because of “the very high land values and the intense level of trauma and the people who are unscrupulous who will come in to try to take advantage of that.” Of course, they arrive at the real root cause of the issue much later in the article. “Maui has stringent affordable housing requirements for new multifamily construction, Tyndall [an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization] said. But the practical effect has been that very little housing gets built. So new supply is low, both for affordable housing and rentals at market rate, ‘which just makes housing more expensive for everyone,’ he said. Tyndall said the Native Hawaiian community has been hit the hardest by the housing crisis and there has been a ‘huge exodus’ due to this lack of affordable housing.” Massive government regulation and no new construction results in higher home prices? Shocking, I know, about as shocking as the media playing cover for a derelict President who possesses absolutely none of the strengths he was said to along with a whole lot of weaknesses. Heck of a job, Biden!
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 