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Politicizing Disaster Relief
I hope I'm just being paranoid, but this announcement has me rather unsettled.
The United States announced it will dispatch Secretary of State Colin Powell and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, next week to oversee U.S. aid efforts in South Asia.
In naming Jeb Bush to accompany Powell on a trip to the area, the White House cited the Florida governor's experience with hurricanes that battered his state this year.
"It's also the president's brother," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. "I think it signifies the high level of importance the president places on this delegation."
Yes, it's also the president's brother. And it's also an excellent opportunity for Jeb to get some international exposure for a political campaign in, say, 2008. Leave it to George Bush to once again politicize human tragedy.
If you want to donate to relief efforts, do the survivors a favor and don't channel funds through Washington. Instead, consider going straight to the source. I recommend Oxfam, which has shown itself to be remarkably independent of government influence.
December 31, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
they waited until they saw that the story had some political gain to it before increasing the US contribution ten-fold ....
Posted by: SR at Jan 2, 2005 5:42:35 PM
Just like fighting the formation of the 9/11 Commission, and then embracing it, and opposing the concept of a Homeland Security Department, and then...
Bush's ability to label Kerry as a flip-flopper, without Kerry being able to do the same in response, was one of the biggest failures of the Kerry campaign.
Posted by: Pete at Jan 3, 2005 8:47:24 AM
