In Maui, a disaster of epic proportions is unfolding, one week after wildfires razed its historic city of Lahaina. It's not just that there was little warning and a chaotic evacuation. Now it's the body count -- 99 people are confirmed dead now, and some 1,000 remain missing. If they're dead, and Lahaina has only 12,000 people, the math isn't pretty -- ten percent of the population may be dead, which has a whiff of Ukraine. The cadaver dogs, with rarified training to detect bodies incinerated to ash in flames, are far too few for a mass casualty event like this, so they still have 75% of the area to search. The lines of cars that tried to escape and got incinerated first weighs heavily, as does the question of why the island's expensive alarm system never went off.
It appears to be the worst natural disaster in a century and certainly Hawaii's biggest catastrophe.
Yet Joe Biden is clueless. His ham-fisted response to this disaster keeps getting worse and worse and worse.
First, he glibly announced that neither he, nor his vice president, Kamala Harris would visit the disaster area.
Then he went on vacation, putting in another beachside time-out, as if there wasn't an apocalypse going on the other side of the country.
After that, returning from his restful rendezvous, he was asked about the scope of the disaster by a reporter, which by then had claimed 93 dead.
His response? "No comment." And then he, kid you not, grinned.
No comment means no coverage, right? Always a bad idea from a public relations perspective to get too close to those failures and disasters, because voters might make associations, right?
Plus, what the hey, as the New York Post noted in its cover story today, Biden knows that Hawaii's residents will always vote Democrat, so why worry about their disaster?
Hain't he got the votes? Given the failures that are mounting now, the camera shots of Biden and Harris standing with them in the rubble's not good for the old poll numbers.
Best of all, he's got the old standbys, the Washington Post and the New York Times, running interference for him, coming up with some amazingly creative spin for his benefit.
The Washington Post is claiming that only Republicans are criticizing the response, those dreadful political opportunists, pretty well asking the rest of us to ignore the cries of anger and frustration coming from very blue Hawaii.
The New York Times, meanwhile, is claiming that the problems with Biden's FEMA response are due to people misunderstanding the nature of FEMA, which is not to be the first government agency on the ground there. That's not what they were saying during the debacles surrounding Hurricane Katrina, where all blame was pinned on President Bush.
Then there was his own White House's efforts at spin control following the callous response of Biden to the disaster -- these were really gross.
According to The Hill:
The White House on Monday blew off criticism over President Biden being on vacation and offering a “no comment” this weekend during the catastrophic fires in Maui, the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in more than a century.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned by CNN’s Kayla Tausche on whether the American people should see the president working the phone rather than spending time on the beach during the crisis, after Biden spent the weekend in Rehoboth, Del., and returned to the White House on Monday morning.
“You all have gotten pool reports on who the president has connected with,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to the White House press pool reports and Biden’s interactions with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“The [FEMA] administrator has been there for two whole days, two whole days on the ground by the president’s request to make sure that the government has what they have, the local government has what they have, the people of Maui have what they have,” she added. “When you talk about a dozen agencies on the ground, helping and assisting … hundreds of FEMA personnel. That’s what — that’s what matters.”
There also was this:
Throw a little money at them. It'll make them go away.
Responsewise, it's eerily similar to his reaction to the border disaster -- failing to go to the scene, shutting down questions about it, throwing a few money pellets, and just doing all in his power to sweep the disaster under the rug to keep the cameras away and confine it as a local story.
It's also incredibly selfish, very me-first in its politicized orientation, which doesn't put the Hawaiians first.
With stories like these coming out, it doesn't seem effective even from a cynical public relations perspective:
Extremely horrifying situation in #Maui
— Shadab Javed (@JShadab1) August 13, 2023
"Today we picked up 12 bodies so total of 18"
Official count is very less but actual number of casualties is more than 500.
Please follow for more stories. #Hawaii #lahaina #LahainaFires #Mauifires #MauiStrong #MauiWildfires pic.twitter.com/AAULAOLxTN
This is what Maui residents are thinking about the government!#MauiFires #MauiStrong #hawaiifires pic.twitter.com/WMOPN2Q65p
— Maui Patriot (@garyhay2) August 13, 2023
UPDATE- A Guy who is at Lahaina, Front street right now says "Aluminum and Glass melted everywhere in the street" ????#Hawaii #hawaiifires #LahainaFires #MauiFires #lahaina #Maui #Prayformaui pic.twitter.com/gchJ4T1oeQ
— T R U T H P O L E (@Truthpole) August 13, 2023
A lot more attention needs to be going to this natural disaster than thus far being seen from this crew. The federal response and Joe Biden's interest in keeping the spotlight off himself during this unprecedented events seems to be adding a layer of new suffering on the already beleaguered people of Lahaina. You can bet the Chinese are watching -- and adjusting their calculations about Biden accordingly.
Image: Screen shot from Twitter.