Bush Moves Fast For Rehnquist – Not So Much For Katrina Victims

Once President Bush decides something is big enough to come off vacation for, it's amazing how fast he can move. Sadly, I'm talking about reacting to the death of William Rehnquist and the almost immediate designation of John Roberts as his successor – not moving rapidly to save lives in New Orleans.

But Bush even shows his priorities in issuing presidential proclamations to commemorate death -- and have the flag flown at half-staff at all public buildings, embassies and military facilities -- by quickly ordering that in honor of William Rehnquist.

I'm guessing the following dialog then took place in the Oval Office:

Karl Rove: I'm sorry to bother you with this, Mr. President, but we probably should also do a half-staff thing for all those people in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Bush: Good catch, Turdblossom. Can I throw in another proclamation thingie for those folks too?

And thus a second proclamation was hurriedly issued for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and its aftershock, Hurricane Bush-FEMA.

But then the White House must have noticed this blunder because they suddenly – just moments ago -- reversed the link references on their web site to make it look as if they thought of Katrina victims first. John Aravosis reported on Bush's priorities on AMERICAblog yesterday and gave the links in the following order, Rehnquist first and then Katrina victims:

UPDATE: That's exactly what happened. They did it for Rehnquist today, within hours of his death, and realized it would look rather callous not to do it for the hurricane victims a week AFTER the hurricane. So they did both today. The hurricane victims were a CYA afterthought. Lovely.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050904-2.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050904-3.html

But, if you click on those now, you would certainly get the impression that Katrina victims were uppermost in their minds as 20050904-02 has mysteriously changed to refer to Katrina victims and not Rehnquist, as it originally did.

Unbelievable.