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Posted with permission.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-misguided-searches-obamas-watergate-and-obamas-katrina
A woman walks through chest-deep floodwater from actual Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, August 30, 2005.
Dave Martin/AP Photo
The misguided searches for Obamas Watergate and Obamas Katrina
07/07/14 03:16 PM
By Steve Benen
On at least 10 separate occasions, President Obamas critics have raised the prospect of various controversies constituting Obamas Watergate. In reality, none of these stories actually amounted to a legitimate scandal worse yet a crisis along the lines of Watergate but the incessant search for an elusive White House scandal led to an unfortunate cliche.
Making matters slightly worse, its not the only misplaced historical parallel in frequent circulation
Its a Katrina moment, right? said Page. Hes going to a fundraiser, and not going to the border where theres a crisis?
The video of the comments are online here.
On the substance, its fair to characterize the humanitarian crisis at the border as a crisis, but to compare it to the Bush/Cheney response to Hurricane Katrina is a tough sell. Its not as if the recent immigration problem is a result of the Obama administrations neglect and indifference. For that matter, theres nothing to suggest the presidents literal, physical presence at the border would actually affect the circumstances at all.
But the comparison appears even more misplaced when one considers just how often Americans have been confronted by chatter about Obamas Katrina.
It was just last fall when Ron Fournier insisted troubles with healthcare.gov were comparable to the Katrina disaster an argument that appeared painfully foolish at the time, and which looks even worse with the benefit of hindsight.
But thats just the start. Superstorm Sandy was billed as Obamas Katrina. The 2010 midterms were described as Obamas Katrina. The BP oil spill was Obamas Katrina. Four years ago, msnbcs Melissa Harris-Perry found quite a few more:
In March 2009, Frank Rich wondered if AIG bonuses would become Obamas Katrina moment. A few months later Politico reported that Republicans hope General Motors is President Obamas Hurricane Katrina, only to be topped by the Washington Times, which asked, Will Swine Flu Be Obamas Katrina? By January of this year the Wall Street Journal readily declared that the Haiti earthquake was Obamas Katrina, while Arianna Huffington recently assured readers that it was jobs, not the BP oil spill, that would be Obamas Katrina.
Dave Weigel and Judd Legum have found others.
As we talked about last year, I can appreciate why Bushs failures like Nixons resonate in the public consciousness. Presidents come and go, but the truly awful chief executives leave their inimitable mark on Americans memories, so its understandable that their greatest catastrophes linger in our minds and serve as convenient rhetorical touchstones.
But the scope of Bushs neglect and incompetence before, during, and after the Katrina crisis stands out precisely because of its uniqueness. Theres simply nothing comparable from the Obama era.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)sheshe2
(83,791 posts)GOP
No Leaders/ No Ideas/ No Morals
...you got that right, napkinz.
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)sheshe2
(83,791 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Started with 9/11 and ended with the Great Recession. His presidency will forever be defined as one collosal fuck-up after another. I remember the funny meme of 2008... "A Libertarian is someone too embarrassed to admit they voted for W, twice."
tridim
(45,358 posts)It's a shame, but that's the way it is with people who don't see anything beyond skin color.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)they seek relentlessly to drag him down to theirs.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)... immigration is Obama's Katrina.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)MICHELLE LEUNG & OLIVIA MARSHALL
July 8, 2014
[font size="3"]Declaring Random Events "Obama's Katrina" Is One Of Conservative Media's Favorite Pastimes[/font]
Healthcare.gov Rollout: "Katrina May Be The Best Analogy." In 2013, multiple media outlets compared the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the Bush administration's botched response to Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times compared the loss of confidence in the Obama administration that followed the rollout to the way the response to Katrina affected the George W. Bush administration. Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera asked, "Is this is like weapons of mass destruction? Is this like President George W. Bush after Katrina?" on Fox & Friends, while ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos tweeted: "How can President Obama recover from his Katrina?" On MSNBC's Morning Joe, Bloomberg columnist Al Hunt declared, "I think Katrina may be the best analogy" to the handling of the ACA rollout. (Media Matters, 12/15/13)
Hurricane Sandy Aftermath: "Obama's Katrina." On the November 1, 2012 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity claimed that the devastation that followed Hurricane Sandy and Obama's response to it looked like "Obama's Katrina":
-snip-
Gulf Oil Spill: "Obama's Katrina." Following the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, conservative media such as Rush Limbaugh, Fox Nation, the Drudge Report and The Washington Times pushed the analogy that the oil spill was "Obama's Katrina." Limbaugh named the oil spill "Obama's Katrina," adding, "That damn oil slick just got in the way. So he had to give some lip service to the oil slick. 'It's all British Petroleum's fault. They gotta clean it up. I'm sending some czars down there.'" (Media Matters, 4/30/10)
H1N1 Flu: "Obama's Katrina." In November 2009, Rush Limbaugh stated that the H1N1 vaccine shortage "ought to be Obama's Katrina," while TownHall.com's Hugh Hewitt asked if Obama's handling of the swine flu outbreak was a "A Katrina Moment For Obama?" (TownHall.com, 4/29/09; Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/3/09)
Fort Hood Shootings: "Could Become Barack Obama's Katrina." In a November 11, 2009 Human Events post titled "Fort Hood Could Be Obama's Katrina," radio host Lynn Wooley wrote:
-snip-
Haiti Earthquake: "Obama's Katrina." In a 2010 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled "Haiti: Obama's Katrina," Soumitra R. Eachempati, Dean Lorich, and David Helfet wrote:
read more: http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/07/08/media-consecrate-their-latest-obamas-katrina-un/200029