Catastrophe to Celebration …

By A Siegel

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Not everything is the Bush White House’s fault. Not everything. In
this case, not fully their fault, but the contrast is too striking to go without
comment.

The White House sent Laura
Bush to speak on the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar. She gave a prepared
statement. And, then she took questions. And, the press had their chance to ask
questions. Some were quite serious, quite on target. But, toward the end the
questions strayed to issues closer to Laura’s heart. MSNBC, however, took a
little time to pick up the shift of subject as you can see over at Huffington
Post. Sigh …

Again, it isn’t as if the White House press office has the ability to control
questions. Or that Laura might have suggested something like “Why don’t we focus
our attention on the tragic situation in Myanmar.” No, of course, that would
have been impossible. Actually, in fact, Laura’s opening comments invited the
questioning.

Thank you all very much for giving me a chance to speak. I’m going to leave
tomorrow for Crawford, for Jenna’s wedding, and I wanted to be able to make a
statement about Burma before I left.

Burma, Jenna’s wedding. Jenna’s wedding, Burma. It wasn’t the media that
opened the door.

Now, Laura has been criticized (for example here, here,
and here) for
words in the prepared statement due to the hypocrisy of these words coming from
the Administration that handled Hurricane Katrina so poorly.

It’s troubling that many of the Burmese people learned of this impending
disaster only when foreign outlets — such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of
America — sounded the alarm. Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s
state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s
path.

Yes, this is troubling and tragic.

But the hubris. Are there other governments, perhaps a little closer to home,
that failed to act appropriately in the face of a serious weather threat?

The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s
failure to meet its people’s basic needs.

Think September 2005 with the words: “The response to the [hurricane] is just
the most recent example of the [Administration's] failure to meet its people’s
basic needs.” Would that have sounded legitimate?

The regime has dismantled systems of agriculture, education and health
care.

Has America’s “systems of agriculture, education and health care”
strengthened in the past seven years? FYI — not by any reasonable set of metrics
…

In her questions and answers, Laura Bush stated this:

But I think in front of their own people and in front of the world, if they
don’t accept aid from the United States and from all the rest of the
international community that wants to help the people of Burma, that that is
just another way that the military regime looks so cut off and so unaware of
what the real needs of their people are.

Does anyone want to remind her that the U.S. government was quite slow in
accepting aid from the international community post Katrina and that there were
many aid offers that were never accepted? Perhaps it might have merited notice
that 59
of 77 offers of aid went unaccepted and, in many cases, even unanswered.

Truth be told, there are many things that Laura said that I agree with, but
the hubris of someone from this White House criticizing another nation’s
response to a hurricane/cyclone …

And, the indelicate (tasteless … heartless …) transition from speaking of
such a deadly tragedy to the laughing and giggling over a wedding …

NOTE: Cyclone Nagris
has killed 10,000s and devastated a large swath of the country. There are
many ways to provide assistance, such as through Relief
Web or through the Burmese
labor unions.