http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1121582Chris Woodward - OneNewsNow - 8/13/2010 6:00:00 AMBookmark and Share
FloridaA director with The Heritage Foundation says President Obama's planned visit to Florida this weekend is more sun and fun than it is serious.
The White House says President Obama will visit Florida this weekend for an update on the Gulf oil spill and recovery efforts. But Rory Cooper, director of strategic communications at The Heritage Foundation, says the side trip is only a PR move.
"Yes, the president is going back to the Gulf for one day to eat some shrimp and to show that his vacation in Martha's Vineyard and in Maine are counter-balanced by him actually looking like he's trying to care about the American people," he remarks.
Cooper, a former senior policy advisor at the Department of Energy, says President Obama is ignoring Louisiana, which has claimed more damage than Florida from the spill.
Rory Cooper (Heritage)"The president refuses to set foot in Louisiana," he explains. "He hasn't been there in months because [Louisiana] Governor [Bobby] Jindal has been trying to hold the president's feet to the fire on the drilling moratorium, which is killing jobs down there, and the [federal] regulations that have caused us not to be able to clean up the oil."
And at a time when political leaders and the president tend to blame their respective predecessors for problems, Cooper says it will not work this time.
"I guarantee you that if in the 'bluest' [predominantly Democratic] state in this country a similar disaster was happening under President Bush's term in office, he not only would have been there -- but if he had spent months and months ignoring it like this president has [ignored the Gulf spill], there would have already been calls for his ouster."
Cooper made the comments Wednesday on the Nothing But Truth program on American Family Radio.
Topic: Is Obama avoiding Louisiana? (Read 413 times)