SALON

Tuesday, Sep 6, 2005 7:36 PM UTC

The president as hurricane victim

In another blast of insensitivity from the right, the Washington Times goes off on the "vultures of the venomous left."

By

Topics: George W. Bush, War Room, The Washington Times,

The president may finally be finding something close to the right tone to strike on Katrina — he has started referring to the storm’s victims as Americans rather than as “folks” from “this part of the world” — but that doesn’t mean that his supporters and apologists are.

We told you earlier today about the “Let them eat cake” insensitivity of the president’s mother and the high-fiving that’s apparently going on along the antiabortion, hard-right fringe. Now comes a hot blast of nastiness from the editor in chief of the Washington Times — a paper that was just a few days ago wondering what happened to the stand-up, take-charge guy who led the nation after 9/11.

In a column posted today, the paper’s editor in chief says that the “vultures of the venomous left” ought to lay off old George W. Bush. The president’s critics, Wesley Pruden writes, “can’t believe their great good luck, that a hurricane, of all things, finally gives them the opening they’ve been waiting for to heap calumny and scorn on him for something that might get a little traction.” Pruden says Cindy Sheehan is “yesterday news” and couldn’t attract a camera crew if she stripped naked down in Crawford, Texas; Katrina is the new darling of the left.

That’s just the warm-up.

Pruden has harsh words for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (he kept the city’s school buses “locked in neat rows when there was still time to take refugees to higher ground”); for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (her “dithering opened the way for looters, rapists and killers to make New Orleans an unholy hell”); and for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (she “seems to think she’s cute when she’s mad”). The Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are “race hustlers” and “self-appointed ambassadors of ill will,” Pruden says, but he seems to take some solace in the notion that the two of them and other members of the “nutcake left” aren’t having much of an effect on how Americans view their president.

He may be getting ahead of himself there. While a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Friday had the nation evenly split on the president’s handling of Katrina — itself a remarkable fact, given the way Americans usually come together behind their president in times of crisis — a Survey USA poll released over the weekend had Americans disapproving of the way Bush is handling Katrina by a margin of 55 percent to 38 percent.

More T.g..

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations