December 29, 2004
THE WORLD BILL CLINTON MADE
Aid Grows Amid Remarks About President's Absence (John F. Harris and Robin Wright, Washington Post, 12/29/04)
The Bush administration more than doubled its financial commitment yesterday to provide relief to nations suffering from the Indian Ocean tsunami, amid complaints that the vacationing President Bush has been insensitive to a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.For better or worse, the President does not think that he was elected to be pain-feeler-in-chief. Posted by David Cohen at December 29, 2004 11:27 AM
"...amid complaints..."
From whom? My guess would be John F. Harris and Robin Wright.
Posted by: Brandon at December 29, 2004 11:47 AMI heard this yesterday and must admit to being completely mystified--why would he end his vacation just because there's flooding in the Indian Ocean?
Posted by: oj at December 29, 2004 11:50 AMHopefully this "Oprahfication" of America has reached its peak. I'd rather someone provided aid and help rather than "feel my pain" and do nothing else.
As noted in an earlier thread the US is by far the most generous country on earth. Private donations via Amazon will probable exceed aid provided by the EU.
Posted by: AWW at December 29, 2004 12:12 PMYes, it recalls all those Page 1 stories written in the Post a decade ago about Bill Clinton being off at Cape Cod while the deaths in Rwanda were insensatively being ignored.
What? There were no Page 1 stores in the Post about that? Surely this must have just been a page layout mistake during production...
Posted by: John at December 29, 2004 1:04 PMPls. No Clinton, not ever, no more, no time, never again, ever, ever. Pls.
Posted by: erp at December 29, 2004 2:10 PMTo the Red Cross via Amazon.
One hopes that Amazon will not be greedy.
I expect that RC will skim their usual 80%.
Posted by: Uncle Bill at December 30, 2004 7:55 AMOf course the Red Cross needs to take their usual vigorish off the top. It's why they are in the business of human suffering.
In their defense, they should have been allowed to bank the excess funds they collected from the 9/11 episode, which now would be available for this iteration of death and destruction. Instead they were forced to make 9/11 widows etc into lottery winners.