The Bush family needs to invest in sensitivity training if not a more elemental character-building program.
While the whole country — the whole world, literally — watched the horrors unfolding in the streets and arenas of New Orleans, President Bush showed up for a photo-op on the Mississippi coast to lend his moral support to U. S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., whose big manse was splintered by Hurricane Katrina along with thousands of humbler dwellings in the storm’s path.
“Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house,” the president announced for the cameras. “And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”
With his accumulated wealth, insurance, Washington home and Senate salary and perks, Lott sure enough should be able to rebuild nicely. That must have lifted the spirits of thousands of homeless and jobless people scattered in shelters, parks and homes across the country.
Then his mother, Barbara, who is said to be furious at criticism of her son’s handling of the disaster’s aftermath, made an appearance at the Astrodome at Houston, where tens of thousands of refugees from the coast were sheltered. Mrs. Bush said that many of the refugees “were underprivileged anyway,” and she suggested that they were better off now than before the hurricane and floods. She found it “scary” that lots of the penniless refugees might want to stay in Texas because they had found things so nice there and Texans so hospitable.
She could have added, “Let them eat cake.”
