Obama, A Day Late And A Dollar Short

August 24, 2016 - Armand Faustin - Contributing Journalist

For those who have seen the first hand devastation of the Louisiana flood, well, there is only one way to describe it. This is a flood of Biblical proportions. Those of us in Livingston Parish without a doubt were hit the hardest. There is not really a neighborhood where lives and property escaped damage, if not outright destroyed.

It reminded so many of us of Hurricane Katrina. The that tragedy still fresh in the minds of most Louisianians, that when the water came, and then kept coming relentlessly, we thought perhaps we made a mistake rebuilding the last time.

I have had friends question the rationale and sanity of those who rebuilt after Katrina. It seemed mad to them to imagine that anyone would rebuild in lowlands, and areas that are prone to hurricanes and flooding like some areas of Louisiana. Now that the water has receded, I myself have questioned my own sanity. There is no question that I will pick up the pieces of life and rebuild like those around me.

But I took some honest stock as to why I would do something that seems forty yards short of rational. The answer is simple and it’s one that each American can relate to. Livingston Parish is home. No one can argue that point.

There is something that certainly reminds us of Katrina. Salt has been poured in an open wound. When Katrina hit, President Bush seemed extremely inconvenienced by the matter. I mean heck, he flew all the way down here and flew over the areas hardest hit and then went home, or wherever the President went.

Bush didn’t have the decency to bother to set foot on the ground. To actually assess the situation and determine and prioritize what type of response that was needed. Where the most critical needs were and how he could get things moving along to provide relief. We were hurt and we were offended and help came ever so slowly.

The floods of 2016, however, are a completely different story. The citizens of Louisiana are angry at the snubbing our State took from Obama’s response. He was playing golf on Martha’s Vineyard on vacation. It is evident that his vacation was of much greater importance than the citizens of Louisiana’s lives. Many thousand of which lost everything and believe me, the citizens of this State are taking it personally. At least Bush made the trip down after only two days.

I spoke with a State employee, and I asked her what the general feeling around the capital was? “We are in complete shock and total disbelief at President Obama’s response to this crisis. Can he actually come here and look us in the eye and say that he cares?” Kristen told me. “We expected much more than we received from President Bush, but all Obama did was to spit on us.”

A source within Governor Edward’s circle refused to go on the record but said, “Perhaps if we had spent our resources sandbagging a golf course, Obama might have come during his vacation.”

Barack Obama, while you were on your beautiful golf course at the taxpayers expense decompressing from who knows what, over 100,000 homes have been damaged. That’s 100,000 homes that people lived in. Not that you care, because your actions have made it abundantly clear that golf is more important than American lives. Maybe that partially explains Benghazi.

Hopefully our next president will actually care about the people he is suppose to serve.

My neighbors, many of whom voted twice for Obama wish they had the chance to vote for him one last time. They would vote for anyone but him, and interestingly enough, several have told me that Obama’s actions might make them rethink their vote in November.

Quoting one of my African-American neighbors, “Maybe I just might vote for Trump. After all, what do I have to lose?”