Obama's Whistle-Stop Tour of New Orleans

[Louisiana]

Today Obama will be making an extremely short stop in New Orleans. Or what my favorite NOLA blogger calls a "tinkle-stop tour." In New Orleans, he'll be visiting a charter school and participating in a town hall meeting in the Lower 9th Ward.

In contrast, his next stop will be San Francisco, where he'll be spending four times as much time--16 hours. This has caused HuffPo's Harry Shearer to say,

Total elapsed time in SF: sixteen hours. They must have experienced a hell of a federal disaster there. Four times worse, you figure?

But the four hours Obama is spending in New Orleans means he won't:

*Be seeing any of the rest of of New Orleans' devastated areas--more of that city was damaged by the Federal Flood than merely the Lower 9th;

*Be checking out the work on New Orleans' levees--considered vitally important by New Orleanians and anyone else concerned about New Orleans' safety from future flooding. This is something he should keep abreast of as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers;

*Be flying over Louisiana's disappearing coast, which has been washing away at a rate of a football field every half hour;

*Be visiting Alabama, Mississippi and the Louisiana areas still struggling to recover from Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike--an omission which has been one of the most controversial things about the briefness of Obama's visit. Stan Tiner even goes so far as to ask,

Is the Mississippi Coast invisible?

Indeed, Obama's whistle-stop tour is being compared to Bush's "fly-over" trip when he couldn't be bothered with visiting the disaster zone.

Some may blow what I have to say off by saying Obama as a Senator and a candidate made five visits to New Orleans--but nothing can match the prestige of a meaningful presidential visit with its symbolism of a presidential commitment to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. As long as such a tour is backed up by concrete action regarding the issues above.

It is a shame that while Bush of that first fly-over and his empty promises managed to visit Louisiana and Mississippi 13 times and made it to all three 8/29 anniversaries in both states, Obama is just making this whistle-stop tour after not having made it to the anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood. And the fact that Teddy Kennedy's funeral happened to take place on that day is immaterial--the point is that even had it not taken place, Obama had made no plans at all to visit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, instead planning to stay at Martha's Vineyard where he was on vacation.

So, he owes New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region one--and it's time for him to get some skin in the game and live up to his promises there.

 

[apdst]

He already has the black vote in New Orleans. There's no need to stay long.

I like how you call it the, "Federal Flood", that's cute.

 

[Joe1991]

From the WSJ today:
Obama Trumpets Stimulus in New Orleans - WSJ.com

Mr. Obama emphasized the local impact of the $787 billion stimulus program during his brief stop in New Orleans. About $15.9 billion has been channeled to the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas since the stimulus act was signed in February. A total of $25.5 billion has been committed to those four states under the stimulus plan so far.

"Over the last nine months, we've sent more Cabinet members to this region than almost anywhere in the country -- not just to make appearances, but to listen, learn, and help you move forward," he told a crowd of 1,400. The administration, he said, has "freed up over $1.5 billion in recovery and rebuilding assistance that had been tangled up in red tape for years."

I'm not sure what more people expect him to be able to do?

I've visited NO and the business areas and French Quarter are going strong, so unless we want to give eveyone a 100k to build a new house, it's gonna many years for those old neighborhoods to be restored.