More on Bush's Failure

From the Village Voice

Desperately Seeking Dubya
White House Swamped by Tsunami Response
by James Ridgeway, with Nicole Duarte
December 29th, 2004 6:01 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C.—President’s Bush’s disappearing act in the face of one of the world’s greatest natural catastrophes in recent memory just raises new questions about what he’s all about. For the rich blue blood to kick back on his Texas ranch while an entire region of the globe attempts to recover from the tsunami that appears to have killed more than 100,000 people—many of them children—is beyond belief.

The president did pause to call for a coordinated disaster relief team, but it wasn't enough to keep even bureaucrats in Washington from finding his behavior odd. “Kind of freaky” was the way one of them put it to The Washington Post.

While Bush stayed home, his aides were playing politics, looking askance at the move by former president Clinton, who almost immediately spoke up from Great Britain about the need for coordinated international response. "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide told the Post, referring to Bush’s view of his appropriate role. But by the time the White House had started damage control on its tsumani response, Clinton, not Bush, had become the voice of the American conscience.

The U.S. is formally pledged to give upwards of $35 million in relief, compared to the EU’s $40 million and Japan’s $30 million. And when you compare the tsunami aid with spending on the Iraq war, for which Congress has appropriated $80 billion-plus, our contribution is peanuts. Even compared with this year's Wall Street bonuses, totaling $15.9 billion, it seems piddling.

American officials are talking about eventually giving $1 billion in aid over, but that will have to be approved by Congress.

As for the U.N. official’s comment on Monday about us being stingy, the president had little patience. "Well, I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," Bush told the AP from his Texas ranch. "We're a very generous, kindhearted nation, and, you know, what you're beginning to see is a typical response from America."