Obama's Hurricane Response Mirrors Bush

Matt Lewis | September 01, 2008 12:31 AM

In a CBS interview today, Barack Obama had this to say about John McCain's visit to Mississippi:

ANCHOR: Senator McCain and his running mate are going to be visiting Mississippi to check on hurricane preparations in Mississippi, do you have plans to come to this area.

OBAMA: You know what I want to do is come after rather as opposed to before, and the reason is that there is a tendency when I make a visit these days or any president…either of the nominees make a visit, with secret service it can distract from law enforcement and the jobs that they need to do. I’m sure senator McCain’s team worked that through and made sure that that wasn’t going to be the case. But I don’t want to be a distraction, what I’m going to do is focus on what needs to happen after the hurricane strikes and to monitor it over the next 48 hours to make sure we are doing everything we can.

Aside from the fact that Obama obviously thinks he is already the president, it is interesting that Obama's position on handling a hurricane is nearly identical to President Bush's.

Flash back to 2005 when President Bush was criticized for not visiting New Orleans until after the hurricane:

"And now the best he can do is look out the window of his plane at the hurricane. His government says he'd like to visit—maybe even tomorrow—but the White House wants to make sure the president doesn't impede the rescue effort."

And compare to Obama today:

"But I don’t want to be a distraction, what I’m going to do is focus on what needs to happen after the hurricane strikes and to monitor it over the next 48 hours to make sure we are doing everything we can."

Any questions?