Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Presidential!


President Coolidge come down in a railway train/little fat man with a note pad in his hand

Really, New York Times?  Is this what you think this deluge is about?

Hurricane Harvey was the rarest of disasters to strike during the Trump presidency — a maelstrom not of Mr. Trump’s making, and one that offers him an opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power of his office he has squandered in recent weeks.

It's nothing more than an opportunity for Trump to finally appear "presidential"?  What, are you the White House PR flack now?  We in Texas are certainly glad we could provide an opportunity for the pooh-bahs on the east coast to seek reassurance about the man behind the Resolute desk.


Yeah, the President thinks it's all about him, too.  He also thinks it's all about water damage:

Mr. Trump, one aide said, was fascinated by the long-term effect of water damage on structures in the Gulf Coast, peppering FEMA and National Security Council briefers with detailed questions about the flooding in Houston and Galveston. As the extent of the projected devastation became apparent over the weekend during a meeting at Camp David, he shook his head in disbelief and compared the situation to problems he experienced when managing his family’s apartment buildings in New York. “Water damage is the worst,” he told one staff member, “tough, tough, tough.”

Maybe if we spray painted his name on buildings he'd be more interested.  Then again, maybe this'll happen:

When reports of flooding in the Mississippi River city hit the news, the Trump campaign immediately dispatched Mr. Pence to tour the affected areas, in part because Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, forewent a visit of her own. When Kellyanne Conway, then the newly appointed campaign manager, told Mr. Trump that his running mate was en route to Louisiana, he responded by asking aides, “Can I go too?” according to three campaign officials familiar with the exchange.

When Mr. Trump offered to donate thousands of bottles of water to the recovery effort, Ms. Conway made one suggestion, according to a former Trump associate: He had to strip the “Trump Ice” labels off first.

Or somebody could just tell us where Melania got her heels, and those sunglasses.  Disaster chic is the new black!

MEANWHILE:

Remember the "chaos" in the SuperDome during Katrina?  Apparently that's an irresistible meme for flood reporting:

People who escaped rising floodwaters and pouring rain spawned by Harvey arrived at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Monday night by the busload and truckload even as the convention center exceeded its capacity of 5,000. The second night inside the center was louder, more crowded and at times, more chaotic.

Yes, the Convention Center was housing 5000 people, and now it's up to 9000 people, with more coming.  No, there wasn't any "chaos."  Just a lot of wet, tired, hungry people in a small space without enough cots for everyone.  And that 30,000 number of displaced people FEMA keeps tossing around; I expect that's gonna double before we're through, because new areas of Houston alone are flooding hourly, and the storm is moving up the coast towards Louisiana now.  But don't buy into the Mad Max/Hobbesian chaos meme.  This is Katrina times 10, and we still haven't started eating each other.

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2 comments:

  1. June Butler5:25 PM

    In favor of the NYT (I can't believe I'm saying this!) perhaps "the unifying power of his office" refers to the office of the president throughout history and not just to Trump's occupation of the office.

    I read Pierce's post, and I still don't understand why he made such a big deal of that one sentence.

    I hope you and your wife are okay, Rmj.

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  2. Rmj6:16 PM

    We're fine. Sun actually came out late this afternoon. Had almost forgotten what that looked like.

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