Democrats, media pounce on
natural disaster to score political points
Andrew Stiles
“You never want a serious
crisis to go to waste,” former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in
November 2008.
Democrats and liberal pundits
are following Emanuel’s advice and refusing to let Hurricane Sandy, which has
left at least 40 dead, distract them from their political
mission of preventing Mitt Romney from becoming president.
The storm and its aftermath,
these liberals argue, illustrate the need for large government agencies funded
by historically high levels of federal spending.
“A Big Storm Requires Big
Government,” read the headline of a New York Times editorial posted Monday evening as the storm was
wreaking havoc in the mid-Atlantic United States.
The Times and
others seized on comments Romney made during the Republican presidential
primary when he said he would be open to exploring whether the role of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be better played by state
governments or private entities.
“Ideology still blinds
Republicans to [FEMA’s] value,” the Times’ editorial board wrote.
“Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people
should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East
Coast.”
FEMA, which coordinates and
assists emergency response at the federal level, obligated some $5.6 billion in
assistance in fiscal year 2011, accordingto its fiscal year 2013 budget request.
That is a rounding error in
the $3.6 trillion of federal expenditures that year.
Practically all the federal budget is devoted to social welfare programs such
as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other cash transfers as well as
defense spending.
Washington Post columnist
Eugene Robinson followed the Times'lead and also
slammed Republicans for opposing massive federal intervention to address
climate change.
Romney’s 2011 comments were
“absurd,” “dangerous,” and “dishonest,” Robinson wrote in a column posted late
Monday under the headline: “Romney would pass the buck on disasters.”
“I guess having to survive a
few hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes on our own would certainly foster
personal responsibility,” snarked the opinion writer.
Huffington Post reporter
Ryan Grim was among the first to revisit Romney’s FEMA remarks in an article posted shortly before Sandy was projected to
make landfall.
Others were quick to pile on.
“Does Romney want Halliburton
in charge of disaster relief?” tweeted Paul
Begala, a strategist for Priorities USA, the Obama-aligned Super PAC that has
run ads suggesting Romney was somehow responsible for a woman’s death from
cancer.
“Whether it’s a hurricane or
everyday life, basic question is are we all in this together or is each on his
own? That’s the choice on 11/6,” opined University
of California-Berkeley professor Robert Reich, who later added:
“Will we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable under President
Obama, or do the exact opposite under President Romney?”
It is unclear if President
Obama is campaigning on a pledge to “afflict the comfortable,” of whom many may
be swing voters.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews on
Monday predicted Republicans would “ have some weird
excuse” to blame Obama for mishandling the federal response to the storm.
GOP leaders such as New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie, however, had nothing but praise for the president’s handling of the
situation thus far.
On Tuesday, as the full extent
of the storm’s damage was being assessed, Democrats and liberals continued to
politicize the crisis in an effort to make the case for bigger government.
Former Democratic Ohio Gov.
Ted Strickland said the storm’s devastation “demonstrates as clearly
as anything I can think of, the importance of having a strong federal
government.”
“When a hurricane comes,
everyone wants Big Brother,” New York Times reporter Nicholas
Confessore said on MSNBC.
Others echoed Eugene
Robinson’s argument that Hurricane Sandy was the result of a Republican-led
effort to block a massive federal intervention in the global energy market
aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
Former President Bill Clinton mocked Romney for mocking Obama’s now infamous claim that his victory in the 2008 Democratic primary “was the moment
when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
Former vice president and
failing cable executive Al Gore said the hurricane was “a disturbing sign of things to
come” if the United States declines to offer dramatic taxpayer-funded subsidies
to green energy companies.
Democratic blogger Jonathan
Chait praised the attacks on Romney, writing: “What you are
going to see over the next week is an overt effort by Democrats to politicize
the issue of disaster response. They’re right to do it.”
Reporters pestered Romney over
his FEMA comments during a hurricane relief event in Ohio.
“TV pool asked Romney at least
five times whether he would eliminate FEMA as president/what he would do with
FEMA,” according to a pool report released Tuesday. “He ignored the
[questions] but they are audible on cam. The music stopped at points and the
[questions] would have been audible to him.”
Headlines such as “Mitt Romney
Refuses To Talk About FEMA After Hurricane Sandy Event” (Huffington Post) and “Romney ignores questions about
eliminating FEMA” (Washington Post) followed.
Romney’s campaign, however,
had already clarified the candidate’s position.
BuzzFeed reporter McKay Coppins was captured on a Politico livestream predicting a “40 percent chance that [Romney] says
something stupid” before the relief event had started.
Romney’s campaign was in Ohio collecting food and other items for storm victims. The
Republican nominee urged supporters to donate money to the American Red Cross.
However, Salon blogger Alex
Pareene was not impressed.
“Just write a fucking check to
the Red Cross and get on with campaigning. Give those useless dry good
donations to Ohio food banks,” he wrote on
Twitter.
The White House tweeted a photo Monday of the president monitoring the
ongoing response to the storm from the Situation Room.
Obama’s decision to cancel
campaign events scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday underscored the
gravity of the situation, as his resolve to appear at rallies and fundraisers
is not easily shaken.
He recently attended a fundraiser in Las Vegas, for example, just one
after the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed during a
terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
A photo of the president
monitoring the Benghazi attack in the White House Situation Room could not be
found.
Andrew Stiles, Free Beacon, October 30, 2012
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário
Não publicamos comentários de anônimos/desconhecidos.
Por favor, se optar por "Anônimo", escreva o seu nome no final do comentário.
Não use CAIXA ALTA, (Não grite!), isto é, não escreva tudo em maiúsculas, escreva normalmente. Obrigado pela sua participação!
Volte sempre!
Abraços./-