McCain's Disgraceful Opportunism In The Face Of Gustav

So while McCain and Palin rush willy-nilly-- I wonder when the crash course on Neocon foreign policy with Randy Scheunemann starts-- to New Orleans to take advantage of the devastation from Gustav and use it as a backdrop for their campaign, Obama is mobilzing his donor and volunteer base to actually help out. Last spring it was exactly the same thing in Iowa when the Mississippi flooded. McCain ran for the photo-ops, disrupting rescue operations and siphoning off crucial assets to meet his campaign needs. Obama helped raise money for the victims.

With Gustav heading right towards New Orleans this morning, Obama told reporters in Lima, Ohio, "We can activate an email list of a couple million people who want to give back. I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary."

Obama said was planning to "stay clear of the area until things have settled down and then we'll probably try to figure out how we can be as helpful as possible."

Asked whether rival John McCain's visit to Mississippi Sunday was appropriate, Obama said concern about deadly storm is not a partisan issue.

"The thing that I always am concerned about in the middle of a storm is whether we're drawing resources away from folks on the ground because the Secret Service and various security requirements sometimes it pulls police, fire and other departments away from concentrating on the job," Obama said.

"I'm assuming that where he went that wasn't an issue."

One of the more vicious of the brigade of McCain's crooked lobbyists, Rick Davis, immediately projected McCain's sickening opportunism onto Obama.

Told Obama had criticized McCain and Palin on the campaign trail over pay equity, Davis continued: "So he attacks us while there's a hurricane going on and John McCain suspends his convention basically. What bigger contrast can you have about putting your country first?"

What a pathetic clown. At least he didn't bring up McCain's time in a cell in Hanoi. As John Arovosis put in at AmericaBlog yesterday:

Obama could have talked about how McCain going to the hurricane zone was irresponsible, self-aggrandizing, and endangered the lives of those in the region whose leaders would better spend their time evacuating their citizens rather than holding court with John McCain. Obama could have talked about how tacky and sleazy and opportunistic it is for John McCain to be considering using the Hurricane Gustav disaster zone as a backdrop for his political convention acceptance speech. Obama could have talked about McCain's vote against the Katrina Commission to hold the Bush Administration accountable for their disastrous non-handling of the previous hurricane. He could have talked about McCain's vote against extending unemployment benefits to Katrina victims. He could have talked about McCain's vote against Medicaid for Katrina victims. He could have talked about McCain voting against funding the Army Corps of Engineers. He could have talked about McCain seeking and receiving the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee after Hagee said Katrina was God's punishment against New Orleans.

And finally, Barack Obama could have talked about how John McCain went and ate cake with George Bush while people were literally dying in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck. Hell, Obama could have, and should have, made this photo into a TV ad that he should run doing the entire Republican convention this week.

But Obama didn't do any of that.

This morning's NY Times is warns that "Officials predicted devastation for towns in its path, tidal surges of up to 14 feet and possible destruction of parts of New Orleans still recovering from Hurricane Katrina... With memories of the shaky response to Hurricane Katrina fresh," Bush and the Republicans are biting their nails and hoping nothing happens they get blamed for. McCain may even miss the convention entirely and just accept the nomination on a video feed from the Gulf Coast, avoiding having had his speech compared to Obama's.

Convention planners and delegates in St. Paul said, and McCain advisers acknowledged, that it could be politically perilous to continue the convention as the Gulf Coast braces for the arrival of Hurricane Gustav. The Bush administration’s unsteady response to Hurricane Katrina, which left New Orleans in ruins three years ago, outraged Americans, drew criticism from Mr. McCain and remains, for many, a stain on President Bush’s record.

As unintended consequences go, Hurricane Gustav does present some political opportunities for Mr. McCain. He looked like a man in charge on television Sunday as he described meeting with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and federal disaster officials. The tumult may also limit comparisons, which may have been unfavorable, between the Republican convention this week and the Democratic convention in Denver last week, where Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech drew more than 40 million television viewers.

There were 11 members of Congress who refused to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005-- naturally, all extreme right Republicans:

Joe Barton (R-TX)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
John Hostettler (R-IN, who lost his re-election bid)
Steve King (R-IA)
Butch Otter (R-ID)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA, who was still trying to memorize a few of the 10 commandments)

Last night ABC-TV reported that in the interim since Katrina, the Bush Regime has done next to nothing to fix the problems. "Despite Congress authorizing $12.8 billion to rebuild the levees, only $3 billion has been spent." A levee expert was quoted saying that what Katrina didn't destroy, Gustav will:

"Huge areas of Louisiana are going to be devastated. We're going in essence to see what Katrina didn't destroy, what Rita didn't destroy in 2005 being destroyed now in 2008," said Ivor Van Heerden, a professor at Louisiana State University who wrote a book about why the levees broke during Katrina.