In New Orleans, most people are pretty happy with our president, Mr. Obama. “President’s doing a good job as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Bienaime, 71, said. “And he ain’t even been there a year.” In fact, scheduled this Thursday is Obama's visit to the Gulf Coast. However, despite some of the praise for the new president, his visit terms to New Orleans was met with criticism.
Apparently, Obama is only going to stay in that state for a few hours, visiting a charter school and an university, then heading to our San Francisco for a fundraiser. So what's the problem? Well, many people think that this visit is definitely way too hasty and kind of contradictory of what the President previously had said.
The president is not visiting any areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, despite his attack on Bush for Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina. Also, during his campaign, Obama visited the city of New Orleans five times. Some people, like a strong supporter Lawrence N. Powell, said“I know he’s got a lot going on, but I think this needed to be approached differently. You can’t multitask a world-historical tragedy.”
Other people like Nick Shapiro, White House speaker, says that all this criticism is not necessary since Obama is already doing some of the things that the people of New Orleans wanted and that this is not Obama's last visit to the region. Obama's administration is also setting up and doing projects that rebuild the Gulf Coast, set up more protection, etc. I personally do not think that all the criticism is that warranted, since Obama definetly will visit this region sometime soon and the administration is directing money and efforts toward rebuilding and aiding the Gulf Coast. However, I can understand how Obama's hasty visit appears to be contradictory of what he stated in his campaign. What do you guys think?
-Henry Zhang
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4 comments:
Of all things that they can complain about, it has to be about the nature of Obama's visit?
"Others say presidential visits do not matter as much as the work that is being done."
That sounds right to me. The visits are done all in vanity's name anyways.
As long as Obama is still doing his best to direct money and efforts to the work that still needs to be done on the Gulf Coast, I don't think that too harsh of criticism is warranted. Obviously policy, action, and federal funds in the Gulf Coast will enact more change than a lengthy stay in the city.
However, I do agree if the people are frustrated with what they believe the be a contradiction. But, Obama was visiting the area when he had a lot less on his plate (he wasn't the leader of United States) and when he was looking for votes and support from that region. It only seems natural that he would devote a lot of time to a demographic like New Orleans when running for president.
Also, Obama now has a multitude of other huge issues to deal with. I'm not saying that Hurricane Katrina isn't a huge issue, just that it has other things like the economy, health care, Afghanistan, and Iraq to compete with.
-Katie Jensen
As long as Obama is doing his job and "doing some of the things that the people of New Orleans wanted", then there's really no need for such harsh criticism. However, I understand where this criticism is coming from. Hurricane Katrina was and still is a sensitive subject for people, not just the inhabitants of New Orleans. The people of New Orleans especially have high expectations for Obama, and his brief visits may seem contradictory. But if he's getting the job done then the people of New Orleans should just be happy that he's paying more attention than Bush did. According to the first paragraph of this article, it seems like some of them are.
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