Some on the right claim that President Obama’s response to the Oil Spill is just like President Bush’s Katrina response back in August of 2005.

The fact however is, the two instances are not the same.

Saturday morning, approximately 48 hours before Katrina passed next to New Orleans, Bush got a call from the then-LA Governor who asked Bush to declare a State of Emergency. Bush did so shortly thereafter, and in a published memorandum authorized the FEMA to coordinate efforts, and so on. But here at the spill, how long did it take for the LA governor to hear back from the Feds regarding barrier islands? WEEKS!

Sunday morning, a day before the New Orleans mess, Bush on the call of then-FEMA director Brown, contacted the LA Governor to demand a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Here at the spill, what did Obama demand beyond “Plug the Damn Hole” 30 days later?

Sunday midday, Bush held a video-conference out of his Texas ranch with all relevant agencies. When did Obama have his first Conference regarding this spill?

Katrina made fall near New Orleans Monday 6:00 AM. By 2:30 that day, a representative of FEMA had already assessed – In person – the situation at the Superdome. Here at the spill, when was the first time a civilian from NOAA or whatever crazy federal agency in charge of Spills, assessed the situation?

Back during Katrina, FEMA had only 2,600 employees, non/few of which are trained or equipped to rescue people from roof tops. That’s why, according to the rescue plan put in motion months before Katrina, the first 48-60 hours following any New Orleans disaster, it was to be in the hands of State/Local officials to do things on the ground while FEMA got contractors or whoever to takeover. But here at the spill, how many 48/60-hour periods later did a federal agency take lead of containing the spread of oil?

So my friends: the Left is correct that this spill is not a Katrina. Not even by a long-shot.

The article was posted earlier today at American Thinker.

During the Bush years, we heard often from the Left that Bush divided the country. To me this statement didn’t make sense, because for example in 1996, President Clinton got barely half of the popular vote during his reelection campaign, while the other half voted against him. What is that if not a divided country?

Besides, if “the system” is that it is the president, and not his critics that divide the country, we should assume that President Obama is at fault for dividing the country following his unifying win of last year November. Don’t you agree?

You see, when Obama came onto the 2008 stage, a lot of people were excited for Him, including people on the right, and count me as one of them. Obama appeared as a fresh person with an open mind to political issues who is willing to work across party lines through giving up some of his own to the other side. I even donated $36 to the campaign (due to a computer mistake, the charge was 2X$36) and signed up to get e-mails from Him, but then, then His true colors came out (his radical associations, spreading the wealth mentality), and Obama lost me and millions others thus dividing the nation again along ideological lines.

Once coming into office, Obama got back the good will of a majority of voters, as reflected in opinion polls earlier this year. But then he took over huge firms (Bush bailed them out, but Obama took them over); dictating executive pay; increasing federal spending well-above the already-crazy Bush spending; apologizing for America worldwide; going soft on the Red Russians; and the list has barely started. With all this, it is no wonder that the Obama’s approval rating is down to the low-mid fifties, which means the country is divided again.

If Obama will continue down this route, He will indeed unite this nation – unite it against him.

Everyone in politics knows the phrase that was coined in ‘992 by James Carvil, the political mastermind of then-Arkansas Governor and presidential candidates Bill Clinton: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” This meant to say to voters, ‘don’t get distracted by other issues. The economy is the problem now, so vote in Clinton for President.’

This phrase 17 years later is still relevant from a political and economic perspective, becouse when debating these days Reaganomics, the Left points to the weakened economy of under Bush the First, and when debating “political strategies” some point to that “”masterful” phrase which “propelled Clinton into the White House.” Both, however, are the longest-standing economic and political myths that I have ever seen.

Consider some facts:

A)  In March of ‘991, the U.S. economy was officially out of recession. In English it means, that nineteen months before Clinton won the election, the economy (GDP) was actually growing again, following a very short and light recession.

B)  You can claim that the GDP growth at the time didn’t translate into prosperity to people. Well, first, at least the economy was growing; it wasn’t in a recession as some try to believe until today. Secondly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which in the current Stimulus Economy is a gage for success or failure, grew from a recession low of 2,398 in the week of October ‘990, to a high of 3,398 in the week of June first 1992. (The Dow didn’t have a disasters fallback as we had starting last year September, so it was not shooting radically upwards like we experience in recent months, nut it had a healthy growth).

C)  Seeing that the GDP and the Dow are not friendly to this “economy stupid” myth, you will turn to jobs. “Jobs growth is what counts in a REAL recovery.” Fine, let’s count jobs: In the last six months of Bush’s ‘992, the economy gained on a monthly average 129,000 jobs, and in the first half of ‘993, the monthly average was 208,000. Considering that jobs are a “lagging indicator,” meaning they lag the rest of the economy, it is fair to say that the healthy job growth (plus the declining Unemployment Rate) of the second half of ‘992 and the robust job growth of early ‘993, reflected a turned-around, BOOMING economy that started months before Team Clinton had its election night plans ready. While I am at it, get this: the last six months of Clinton’s ’00, the economy gained a poor monthly average of 100K, and the following half year the economy lost 73,000 jobs on a monthly basis, which confirms again that GW Bush inherited a recession, whereas Bill Clinton inherited a booming economy.

D)  Politically speaking, Bill Clinton won a poor 43% of the popular vote in ‘992, one of the weakest showings for an outside candidate, yet he still won the election, due to a third party candidate – Ross Perot running to the Right of Bush – picking up 18% of the popular vote, leaving Bush with just 37% of the vote. In other words, Carvil’s phrase resonated with only a small portion of the population, as we see that Clinton got  only 43% of the vote, of which a big chunk were African Americans who regularly vote 9-10 for Presidential Democrats, regardless the state of general affairs.

Obama, his supporters and the media are excited that the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached today 10,000. It means that the thirty stocks in the Dow index climbed a lot since the Dow’s 6,500 low back in March.

This is funny, because I remember that just a year ago people on the Left were excited with the Dow’s fall because the “rich” on Wall St, “the wealthy,” were losing money. So… why are they now excited with the Dow’s 10,000? Furthermore, in late ’03, under President Bush, the Dow in a period of just a few months reclaimed 10,000 of its 7,600 low. I do not remember the left calling that a “recovering” economy, and in November ’06 when the Dow was at 12,000, the Left didn’t call it a “good” economy either. In fact, some until today believe that the Dems regained control of congress in November of 2006, in part, due to the “weak” economy.

So again I ask: Why does the left care that the Dow is at 10,000?

I want to ask a few questions from people on the Left who liked to attack former President George W. Bush.

• You criticized a lot the fact that wiretaps and other intelligence methods were used against “innocent” people. In recent weeks, however, a few terror plots were foiled, future terrorists were arrested, all (or mostly) on investigations that started under the evil Bush administration and by its use of wiretaps and other intelligence methods. Based on these developments, are you – Bush critic – ready to take back your endless attacks?

• In most of their second term, the Bush team warned us about the Iran threat, you however critiqued them as war mongers. Candidates Obama, Clinton, Edwards and other Dems attacked Bush following the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of late ’07 which claimed that Iran suspended its nuclear program since 2003, yet just a few months later the UN’s nuclear watchdog reported that Iran had managed to enrich enough uranium which is technically enough to build a nuclear weapon, and just recently President Obama revealed to the world (and Iran acknowledged) the existence of an underground uranium enrichment site. Based on these developments within less than two years of your harsh attacks, are you ready to take back your critic of Bush’s sounding the alarm on Iran?

• During the 2008 campaign you endlessly said that we need to fight the “real” war, which is in Afghanistan, rather than being “distracted” by Iraq. Now however with Obama at the helm and after him giving a small buildup, there is little support for more troops in Afghanistan, and “we could see a re-deployment of some troops OUT of Afghanistan,” as per an analysis a September 28 on First Read. Based on this, are you Bush Critic ready to admit that your attacks in recent years about focusing on the “real” war were just political bias rather than meaning the good of the Afghan War?

Go ahead, you political phony: answer those questions, if you can.