I saw Peter Kovacs, editor of the Advocate newspaper (the daily paper in Baton Rouge, La.), being interviewed on MSNBC Saturday. In that interview, he harshly criticized President Obama for not visiting Louisiana flood victims and he disingenuously tried to say Obama was just as neglectful of those victims as President George W. Bush was toward the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Kovacs was in his self-righteous glory. His objective seemed more to smear Obama and paint the picture of moral equivalencies between the Obama Administration’s response to these floods and the Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, more than calling attention to the flood victims’ needs--which should be everybody’s top priority.
An article by editorial board member Stephanie Grace published in his own newspaper on Aug. 19 contradicted Kovacs’ duplicitous contentions. Here’s a portion of that article (www.theadvocate.com/...):
Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has a better view than just about anyone, went on MSNBC Thursday night and told viewers that "I don't feel forgotten by the federal government…We have what we need from the federal government."
Edwards and his allies stressed Thursday that they've been in daily communication with White House officials. FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, an emergency response specialist who before joining the Obama administration oversaw Florida's disaster responses, has been here. So has Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. President Barack Obama started issuing disaster declarations quickly, which frees up federal resources and gets the ball rolling on longer term needs. Inspectors are on the ground. It's a miserable time for the many thousands affected, but a faulty response isn't making it more miserable.
In short, as far as the federal government goes, this is not Katrina.
Further, an editorial published Aug. 17 in the Advocate I’m sure Kovacs had a hand in writing praised President Obama’s actions (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_f1ce22ee-64b4-11e6-b11a-a393ff25161d.html?sr_source=lift_amplify), saying:
The president acted prudently in officially declaring a disaster for the flooded part of the state, a key step in advancing federal aid. We’ve been heartened so far by the active involvement of Craig Fugate, head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, a far cry from FEMA’s hapless Michael Brown in the days after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was slated to visit Louisiana today to assess the damage.
My biggest problems with Kovacs: He’s trying to claim moral equivalence between how President Obama is responding to these floods and how President Bush responded to Hurricane Katrina. That is patently false, unfair and offensive; he’s also taking cheap shots by playing into the tired, racist narrative that lazy Obama is always on vacation playing golf. All Kovacs is trying to do is shame the President into visiting the area, so they can then criticize him for coming late.
In the aforementioned editorial, Kovacs and his editorial board cited President Johnson visiting Louisiana in 1965 after Hurricane Betsy hit Louisiana in 1965. Johnson reportedly flew in and visited a shelter darkened by a power outage. During that visit, Johnson is alleged to have shined a flashlight on his face and then telling the crowd there he was their President and was there to help.
That’s a great story, but it was probably much safer for Johnson to do something like that, than it would be for Obama.
I suppose Kovacs doesn’t realize President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched Secret Service. He is the most threatened President in history! It wouldn’t be too smart to have him peeking into dark rooms…anywhere--especially in the South.
Kovacs’ newspaper also published a story Aug. 18 that made it plain that Louisiana Governor asked President Obama not to come until the crisis had settled down, so as to not tie up law enforcement officers who’d be pulled away from flood duties to assist with the presidential security detail (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_18893692-657f-11e6-b84c-07aecd4409b8.html?sr_source=lift_amplify). Here’s an excerpt:
(Gov. Bel) Edwards, a Democrat, said that those trips, plus near daily communication with the White House, has shown that the flooding is a priority for the federal government. He said a visit from Obama, which would require heightened security and road closures, would be a drain on resources as the state still works to respond to the flood.
"Quite frankly, that's not something I want to go through right now," Edwards said. "I would just as soon he wait a week or two."
Passages from Kovacs’ own newspaper contradict and damn his own pretentious television grandstanding. He strikes me as the type who doesn’t like President Obama and constructed a way to make him look bad and make Trump seem like the wonderful savior, while all Trump really did was get in the way of real relief activities by handing out “much-needed” Play-Doh (donated by somebody else) during a 49-second photo op. I’d bet good money that Kovacs’ newspaper will use this as the impetus to find an excuse to justify endorsing Trump just for that self-serving act.
The facts--even those reported in his own newspaper--don’t match up with Kovacs’ anti-Obama sniping. Mr. Kovacs should read his own newspaper before he goes on television to berate the President and if he can’t, he needs to sit down.