Yes Obama compares the BP oil spill to 9/11 rather than Hurricane Katrina (obviously because Katrina got blamed on his predecessor). Bush became popular not because of 9/11 but because of his response to it (as John Podhoretz points out). Obama gives us all the evidence we need to come to the conclusion that he is a self pitying narcissist.
by John Podhoretz
President Obama doesn’t like the fact that the Gulf oil spill reminds people of Hurricane Katrina, since the public response to that catastrophe hastened the decline of his predecessor’s standing. He’d prefer that the American people be reminded of something else — something that rallied people around their president.
And so he told Politico over the weekend that the oil spill has “echoes of 9/11.”
Americans thought differently about “our vulnerabilities” after the events of 9/11, Obama said, and the oil spill is “going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”
Just as in those cases, what’s most notable about 9/11 and the oil spill is how essentially different they are. One was a brilliantly conceived and diabolical act of war; the other a horrific accident that was the last thing anybody wanted to happen. One was designed to decapitate the US government and deliver a mortal blow to the world’s financial system; the other wasn’t designed at all.
One was purposeful destruction intended to harm. The other is a purposeless catastrophe that was in no way intentional at all but will do great harm. One was an attack on the United States. The other was an accident.
So what on earth could the president have been thinking?
Read the rest: Obama’s 9/11 Envy
Tags: John Podhoretz
