NYT Slams Bush For Katrina, Justifies Obama After La. Floods

Brittany M. Hughes | August 26, 2016
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With journalistic egg dripping from both its two faces, the New York Times has begrudgingly admitted it dropped the proverbial ball in reporting on the historic flooding that’s devastated Louisiana over the past week, killing at least 13 people and leaving more than 40,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

As Townhall’s Matt Vespa pointed out, the NYT was forced, seemingly from reader complaints, to acknowledge it hadn’t allocated enough coverage to the major disaster, choosing instead to focus on more important headliners such as a lying Olympic swimmer and each time Donald Trump decided to scratch his nose.

In the somewhat half-hearted apology for ignoring the plight of thousands, NYT’s Public Editor Liz Spayd admitted:

No doubt this is a busy news period, and the fact that it is August compounds the usual challenges of getting available staff to the site of the news. But a news organization like The Times — rich with resources and eager to proclaim its national prominence — surely can find a way to cover a storm that has ravaged such a wide stretch of the country’s Gulf Coast.

But nowhere in Spayd’s article is any admission of yet another journalistic oversight by the New York Times: i.e., any mention whatsoever of President Obama remaining on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard in the days following the flood, the continual golf trips and Democratic fundraisers he refused to cut short, or the fact that the president has yet to make the first public statement regarding the disaster.

But that certainly wasn’t the case back in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Back then, the New York Times lost little time going for the jugular of then-President George W. Bush.

In fact, in an editorial piece entitled “Waiting For a Leader” published on Sept. 1, 2005, the New York Times wrote:

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed.

(Note: President Bush arrived in Louisiana a mere three days after Katrina landed, while President Obama vacationed for well over a week before gracing disaster victims with his executive presence.)

Another op-ed in the NYT published on Sept. 6, this one titled “The Larger Shame,” slammed Bush’s response to Katrina while simultaneously accusing him of not caring about poor people in America. An article penned on Sept. 23 painted the picture of a President Bush desperate to save face after personally bungling the disaster. Another story on the first anniversary of the storm accused Bush and being "still under the shadow of the slow response to the storm," saying the president's "popularity was severely damaged after the storm...and it has never fully recovered."

An NYT piece in February of 2006, still raking the then-president over the coals for the federal government’s response to Katrina, snidely commented that the Bush had been “on vacation” during the storm. 

But despite admitting their own scant coverage of the Louisiana flooding over the past two weeks, the New York Times did scrounge up an otherwise unoccupied journalist to pen a nice little defense of President Obama last Wednesday:

Louisiana has been the site of some of the nation’s worst disasters over the last 15 years, and Mr. Obama’s trip will inevitably be compared to the performance of another president, George W. Bush, his Republican predecessor who was harshly criticized for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The Obama administration’s response has been praised, even as Mr. Obama’s own presence has been criticized. But everything is taking place against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election, and for Mr. Obama, who hopes to help get Mrs. Clinton elected, every action has a potential consequence.

Good save, NYT. Good save. 

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