New Orleans: Obama Cares, Just Not So Much

Given that Barack Obama is said to already be having issues with traditional black democrats due to his, actually more recent, African roots, two little items stitched together in a story out of New Orleans might not do much to help his cause:

Obama also said he wants to know if the health needs of the city are being met, and whether waste and fraud reported in government contracts has been eliminated.

Obama's first visit to New Orleans after Katrina was in July 2006. His latest stop here comes here about a month after Edwards formally launched his presidential campaign by helping rebuild one of the tens of thousands of homes damaged by the Aug. 29, 2005, storm.

My first entry in the Hurricane Katrina category was on August 26 as the town was preparing for the storm. My last entry was just a month ago when some police officers were charged with murder.

If you do a word search through the category, Obama's name is nowhere to be found. The only mention of Edwards is when he recently announced. But search for Bush and it comes up maybe a hundred times - including all the bashing of course.

Maybe Kanye West should write a new song ... Obama and Edwards don't care about black people ... until the primary comes around.

Comments

[Oregonian]

Let me see if I follow the "Riehl World" logic here: You don't care about Obama (or, at least, not enough to write about him) and therefore Obama doesn't care about black people. Is that your thesis here?

You're in fine form, as always, Dan.

[Phoenix]

Oregonian,

Do you follow and read the links? Do you bother with the thesis? Can you count? WHO has been in New Orleans more times?? This has nothing to do with being black. Oh god, you are a flamer of the first order.

[scarshapedstar]

I hate to break it to the 28 percenters - actually, I don't - but most other people, especially Louisianians (of which I am one), regard Katrina as the most shocking failure in modern American history. Well, except for maybe 9/11, or Iraq. And if you think that reminding everyone of that is going to somehow plop the albatross onto the Democrats' necks, well... *snort* more power to you. You might want to check the talking points, though, since Bush gave a SOTU that pretended as though absolutely nothing had happened.

[Bob]

Let me get this straight. You wrote about Bush and Katrina more than you wrote about Obama or Edwards and Katrina. This proves that Obama and Edwards don't care about black people.

What?!

[Dan Riehl]

regard Katrina as the most shocking failure in modern American history.

I agree. Just a little more dynamite under that levee and we wouldn't have to worry about rebuilding at all. We could just dock gambling riverboats on top of where the houses were and party to our evil little hearts content.

[RPK]

I live in Louisiana and my house was flooded with four feet of water. I am personally tired of all the whining and crying from politicians about Katrina. The state and city officials have been slow and lacked leadership from failure to order a timely evacuation plan, following the established emergency plan, slow in activation the national guard, and unbelievably slow in distributing the federal money appropriated and given to Louisiana. It is not the federal government that has screwed the residents it is the local elected officials.

On the other hand Mississippi has had state and local leadership and is nearly a year ahead of Louisiana and New Orleans in recovery.

On the other hand Mississippi has had state and local leadership and is nearly a year ahead of Louisiana and New Orleans in recovery.

The fact is that about two thirds of the New Orleans houses that have not been rebuilt were candidates for bull dozing prior to the storm. New Orleans was a run down, degenerated city suffering from lack of leadership and honest government for decades prior to Katrina. Katrina gave the city an opportunity to correct the grossly deficient infrastructure by developing a master plan and executing it. They have not. As such the golden opportunity will pass and local politician will bitch and moan and accept no responsibility for their own actions.

Personal responsibility is evident everywhere in the area. My community, like many others is nearly completely restored. Why is it that fifteen miles away from New Orleans other communities have rebuilt?

[Carl]

You 28%ers forget that your brave leader was busy playing guitar while NO flooded and then did a flyby on his way back to DC. Contrast that with him cutting short a vacation (a truly meaningful gesture from The Vacation President) for a braindead Terry Schiavo.

Don't wonder why you will lose even bigger in '08. Stay the course!

[Stormy70]

Katrina is past its sell-by date, especially here in Texas where all the criminals washed up. The decent people got jobs long ago and have started over without complaining about everything. New Orleans is too corrupt to rise again. But at least Nagin and all his cronies have gotten a decent pay raise while sitting on their asses.

[Phoenix]

What is revolting is that DEMOCRAT presidential contenders will use Katrina for all it's worth.

RPK said it best.

[scarshapedstar]

I'll say this. Clinton wouldn't have waited a fucking week to show up. You can talk about "hands-off leadership approaches" all you want. It's about as impressive as a kid telling his mom he has a hands-off approach to cleaning his room.

[Oregonian]

"The fact is that about two thirds of the New Orleans houses that have not been rebuilt were candidates for bull dozing prior to the storm. ... My community, like many others is nearly completely restored. Why is it that fifteen miles away from New Orleans other communities have rebuilt?"

RPK, doesn't your question pretty much answer itself?

I'm guessing that the houses in your own community were not "candidates for bull dozing" before Katrina. In other words, when the time came to make repairs, it's very likely that you and your neighbors had (among other things):

- jobs,
- savings accounts,
- insurance,
- loans,
and
- established lines of credit.

You had the resources to rebuild, you were spared the brunt of the storm, and people in your community were allowed to return almost immediately. I'm sincerely glad that things worked out well for you.

In New Orleans, on the other hand, they didn't just get four feet of flooding. They had water up to the rooftops (which is why many people died when they were trapped inside). The entire community was evacuated, often to places hundreds of miles away. Jobs ended, employers left, schools closed, and public services disappeared. What little insurance the property owners had is still being tied up in court battles. In short, the storm took homes and jobs away from people who didn't have much else. And that's why the city is still a mess.

To expect the poorest of the poor to somehow rebuild an entire community with no money and no way to earn or borrow any money is simply unreasonable.

[Wahoo Willie]

What's saddest is that all those poor folks had everything they needed until 21 Jan 2001 when GW sent his ninja's in there to destroy everything Johnson's great society had built up. Amazing how in a matter of months GW took alll the money and made houses fall into disrepair and no one noticed until he blew up the levees

[Stormy70]

The State has the money, they just aren't sharing the wealth with their corrupt counterparts in N.O.
Plus, I called my Congressman and told them will lose my vote forever if they send more money to be flushed down the toilet in New Orleans, without oversight or accountability. So many voters have communicated this, that the money will be hard to come by if New Orleans misuses the money they have already gotten. They need to do some good works with the money they have, instead of depositing it into their nearest relatives' bank account.

[Bruce Dixon]

Hi. We at Black Agenda Report are not the biggest fans of Senator Obama either. We've written several articles critical of him from an African American viewpoint. We take serious issue with your contention that some significant number of American blacks dislike or disagree with Obama because of his parentage. Please be assured that this is wildly incorrect.

If you really are interested in knowing why progressive black forces have a lot of trouble with Obama, a good place to start is our lead article this week at www.blackagendareport.com, which deals with Obama's position, or lack of a defined position, on health care.

It's not at all surprising to find that he didn't make it to the Gulf Coast till 10 months after Katrina, though I don't recall having heard that before. We have also recently published articles by Bill Quigley of New Orleans at Black Agenda Report, the latest of which notes that HUD will be spending millions of Katrina housing and rehab dollars to tear down thousands of units of perfectly good public housing, rather than allow the former tenants to come back.

At our previous internet home, Black Commentator, before we left, we were among the first to call for the rights of Gulf Coast residents to return, rebuild and remain, and to predict that authorities would use Katrina as an excuse to displace as much of the city's poor and black populace as possible.

Nice site.