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Cyclone Katrina: What George Bush sees

George Bush visited New Orleans yesterday and said he saw things coming together most postively. Oh yeah?

The NY Times reports the realities this way:

"On the eve of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush returned to the devastated Gulf Coast today promising to continue federal assistance, and eagerly pointing out signs of progress.

Speaking in a working-class neighborhood in Biloxi, Miss., President Bush attempted to recast the legacy of the year before.

“It’s amazing, isn’t?” he told a gathering under a sweltering sun. “It’s amazing what the world looked like then and what it looks like now.”

Mr. Bush, his presidency still marred one year later by the slow government response to the storm, spent the afternoon demonstrating his empathy and optimism in meetings with residents and officials along the storm-wracked coast. The trip marked an attempt by Mr. Bush to recast the legacy of the year before, when he lingered on the other side of the country before cutting short his vacation to deal with the crisis.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that, for some, rebuilding may have been so gradual as to seem non-existent. But, Mr. Bush said: “For a fellow who was here and now a year later comes back, things have changed.”


Read the NY Times piece here.

For its part the The Independent reports:

"It was the storm that laid waste to an area along the US Gulf Coast about the size of England, in the process wreaking havoc on one of America's legendary cities. It also changed the perception of a presidency, perhaps forever.

Some 1,600 deaths are now attributed to the storm. Some Gulf Coast communities were virtually wiped off the map. In New Orleans itself, half of the 500,000 inhabitants pre-Katrina have yet to return and many of them surely never will. Ray Nagin, the mayor, says population recovery will take five years, but that may be optimistic."


Read this article here. What both reports confirm is that George Bush lives in some universe somewhere out there far removed from the real world......one of the reasons things are in such a mess for the world today.

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