Michael Brown doesn’t think President Obama is doing a ‘heckuva job.’ The problem, says Brownie? Obama’s disaster relief efforts are moving too fast.
George W. Bush’s FEMA director, who was ruthlessly mocked after the GOP president congratulated him for doing a ‘heck of a job’ while New Orleans sank in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, is no fan of the current president’s widely-praised response to Hurricane Sandy.
Brown spoke to the Denver Westward on Monday before Hurricane Sandy picked up speed, arguing Obama was acting with too much haste.
“One thing he’s gonna be asked is why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in … Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown asked, referring to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, which left four Americans dead. “Why was this so quick? … At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question….This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”
Brown—who resigned amid accusations that he acted too slowly after Katrina, leaving thousands of New Orleans residents in harm’s way—charged that Obama’s Sunday press conference warning about the seriousness of the hurricane was merely political.
“My guess is, he wants to get ahead of it—he doesn’t want anybody to accuse him of not being on top of it or not paying attention or playing politics in the middle of it,” he says. “He probably figured Sunday was a good day to do a press conference.” Obama, of course, has canceled all of his campaign appearances through Wednesday to deal with deadly Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath. So far, he has been praised for his reaction by Democrats and Republicans alike. Mitt Romney held a “disaster relief” event in Ohio Tuesday, which looked to many reporters very much like a campaign rally.Recommended
