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(NewsNation) — Will the Hawaii wildfires become President Joe Biden’s Katrina? The president is commander in chief, but when Americans suffer, especially from a huge natural disaster, he must become comforter in chief.
I didn’t create that term. Longtime White House correspondent Kevin Corke taught me that. He covered former President George W. Bush during Katrina when Bush flew back from vacation and looked out the window of Air Force One to survey the damage.
It’s not much different than Biden, who spent the weekend at the beach. He ignored reporters asking him about the deadliest fire disaster in a century. In case you missed that, he said: “No comment.”
The Bush-Katrina, Biden-Maui similarities are stunning.
At first, it appeared the wildfire on Maui only killed a few people. At first, it appeared New Orleans survived Katrina. But as days went by, the destruction became unimaginable by modern standards.
Right now, we know the Maui fires killed 99 last week. But searchers and cadaver dogs have only cleared 25% of the destruction so far.
In fact, the governor of Hawaii said rescuers don’t even know how many people are unaccounted for.
In the end, the fires may claim the lives of hundreds — sadly we must emphasize the plural: hundreds. Right now, there’s at least 10,000 people who are homeless.
The pictures of Americans diving into the ocean to escape the flames aren’t much different than the pictures of Americans floating through flood waters in the lower 9th Ward.
At times like this, we need our president. Of course, he can’t actually do much. But he must comfort us. And he must command the full resources of America’s might to come help the least fortunate among us.
Yet, time and time again over the past week, Biden jogged past reporters. It wasn’t until Tuesday that he finally interrupted his schedule to let folks know he would show up.
“My wife Jill and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can,” Biden said. “That’s what I’ve been talking to the governor about. I don’t want to get in the way. I’ve been to too many disaster areas. But I want to go and make sure they’ve got everything they need.”
The White House justifies Biden’s long vacations by saying he can be president from anywhere, which is true.
There is no more powerful man in the world than the president. The resources at his disposal are unmatched. So, his White House has no excuse for their flat-footed response nearly 96 hours after the fires blew through. Here is his press secretary Monday.
“The president is certainly deeply concerned about the people in Maui,” Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“It’s been a devastating devastation, as we have seen,” she said in another comment.
Sadly, Karine Jean-Pierre makes the already hard job of a White House press secretary look harder than it is. And in the end — responsibility lies with the president.
Evidently, Biden spent the weekend literally at the beach — not working the phones and ordering an all-hands-on-deck response. We know that because earlier today the Hawaii state senator for Maui joined NewsNation — and in case you are wondering, he is a Democrat.
When asked whether he is satisfied with the federal government’s response in the aftermath of the fires, Hawaii state Sen. Angus McKelvey said: “No, I’m not actually. I’m not and this community is not at all. I mean, there’s a disconnect going on. I mean, they’re talking to top people in Honolulu. The state senator, the state representative and the council people, we’re on the ground. We have information. We have a wireless network to get stuff up in the community and they are absolutely ignoring us.”
That is unforgivable.
Seriously put aside why the fire started. We don’t know. And if there was enough water pressure in the fire hydrants – there wasn’t. Or why the warning systems might have failed – we don’t know. But heat might have literally paralyzed the system. None of that matters because America needed their president, specifically the people suffering in Hawaii needed their president to care.
Biden was at the beach.
Optics matter. That’s something George W. Bush figured out after giving a statement to the White House press pool while on the golf course.
“We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations, to do everything they can, to stop these terrorist killers. Now, watch this drive,” he said.
Later in his presidency, Bush would give up golf. He understood the optics of a wartime president on the links just didn’t work. That didn’t prevent him bungling Katrina.
After the Katrina flyover, he visited New Orleans, and things went from bad to worse.
“Save lives and get food and medicine to people, so we can stabilize the situation. Again, I want to thank you all for — and Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
That was 18 years ago, and the punchline has never gone away. The criticism of Michael Brown wasn’t fair then. It’s not fair now.
But that’s the point. As president, perception is reality and the optics of a beach vacation while cadaver dogs search Hawaii is hard to escape.
