Last week brought raging Colorado wildfires and a massive mid-Atlantic storm that killed 13 and left three million without power. And when hard luck and bad weather strike, a presidential visit is sure to follow. It’s part of the modern president’s job to descend upon the wounded land, ministering to the afflicted with soothing words and truckloads of federal aid.
George W. Bush took to that role eagerly, with a record-setting average of 129 presidential disaster declarations a year. Bush waxed messianic in May 2007 when he manifested himself in a tornado-ravaged Kansas burg, aiming to “lift people’s spirits … and to hopefully touch somebody’s soul by representing our country … to let people know that while there was a dark day in the past, there’s brighter days ahead.”
