Out of the rubble

 

I maintained this blog regularly from 2003 to 2016. Although old posts are still online for reference, this post was published 21 years ago and it could be out of date.

 

Out of the rubble

President Bush, at 10.30am this morning, arriving in Mobile Alabama:

The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

Err, that would be the same Trent Lott who had to resign as Senate majority leader in 2002, for making apparently nostalgic remarks about racial segregation:

When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Could President Bush have thought of a more inappropriate way of empathising with the victims of Katrina?

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2 responses to “Out of the rubble”

  1. Brian Barder avatar
    Brian Barder

    Today’s Guardian quotes George W Bush as having said, after inspecting the damage in New Orleans from the air yesterday (there seems to be some confusion about whether he actually landed in that city):

    I understand the devastation requires more than one day’s attention. It’s going to require the attention of this country for a very long time.

    But I see that this quotation has been excised from the online version of the article, so perhaps he didn’t actually say it. He can’t have said it, can he? Can he?

    Yes, he did. There it is in the New York Times:

    “I want you to know that I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen,” Mr. Bush said in remarks at the end of the day on the tarmac at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. “I understand the devastation requires more than one day’s attention. It’s going to require the attention from this country for a long period of time.”

    Brian

  2. dave avatar
    dave

    Bush has a knack for getting the press corps to giggle at his little jokes. At the moment it’s about all he has going for him at a press conference.