True to form, the unfailingly polite and good-natured Dana Perino didn’t want to pile on criticism of President Obama for choosing not to cut his vacation short and visit flooded Baton Rouge, La.
It would have been understandable if Perino had. After all, 11 years ago, she was a deputy White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, with responsibility for the Department of Homeland Security, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
“I feel like there should be a statute of limitations on scoring political points on the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina,” Perino, co-host of Fox News Channel’s “The Five” told the Washington Examiner’s “Examining Politics” podcast this week.
Soon after Katrina struck in August of 2005, Perino’s boss, Bush, was vilified by the press (and his political opponents) for, among other things, not getting down to the Gulf Coast fast enough to show concern and survey the damage in southern Louisiana.
The political fallout was vast for the Republican, and it was compounded by the decision by the White House communications office to release a photograph of Bush reviewing the damage from aboard Air Force One.
There were issues with how the Federal Emergency Management Administration was being managed, which was a part of the backlash Bush faced among voters. But his reasoning for flying over New Orleans, rather than visiting, was that he didn’t want to get in the way of recover efforts.
It was for that reason that, last week, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, told the White House that it would be better if Obama visited this week, which he did. Obama was criticized by Republicans, including presidential nominee Donald Trump, who did travel to Baton Rouge last week, for not going sooner.
“President Bush stepped up and took a lot of responsibility and blame away from the Democratic governor and Democratic mayor, who refused to evacuate,” Perino said, recalling Katrina. “If the White House communications office had never released the photo of him on the flyover on Air Force One, that would not have become the symbol of the activity.”
