NEW ORLEANS — Barack Obama's first presidential appearance in New Orleans today is set to be short and tightly scripted, with a visit to a Lower 9th Ward charter school and a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans.
If the president has a chance to look out the window of his limo, he will probably get a firsthand glimpse of the massive logistical headache he has inherited: More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, 91,000 homes remain blighted in the city and in two nearby parishes, according to August figures compiled by the Brookings Institution.
But it is evident that Obama has also inherited the political headache that post-storm recovery became for the previous administration.
The allegations haven't risen to Kanye West levels -- it was rapper West who famously alleged that former President George W. Bush didn't care about black people. But a handful of Republicans and others here have been grumbling loudly about what they see as scant executive attention to one of the worst disasters to befall a U.S. city.
Much of it focuses on the fact that Obama's only visit to New Orleans since his inauguration nine months ago will last about three hours and 45 minutes.
In an Oct. 8 letter to the president, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said it would be "deeply disappointing" to Louisianians if Obama did not plan a more thorough tour of the region. In the local Times-Picayune newspaper, Tulane University historian Lawrence N. Powell said Obama "shouldn't come at all if he's coming for a glorified layover."
Even Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, the state's Democratic senator, fretted that the visit was too brief.
On New Orleans talk radio Wednesday, morning host Michael Castner of WRNO-FM (99.5) labeled a caller a "hypocrite" for bashing Bush's lack of a vigorous response to Katrina -- but not Obama's.
"It's OK with Bush, but it's not OK for the Anointed One," Castner said, in a sarcastic reference to Obama.
The Obama administration has pushed back hard against the charge of Katrina malaise, noting that Obama visited the storm-struck area five times before he was president.
Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said that three Cabinet secretaries also would be traveling to New Orleans today for separate events: Janet Napolitano from Homeland Security; Shaun Donovan of Housing and Urban Development; and Arne Duncan from the Department of Education.
