Condoleezza Rice was today's guest on ABC morning chat-fest The View, and among the questions she weathered was this one from Sherri Shepherd: "What happened with Katrina...why are there still lower-income people still living in trailers? That this happened on American soil, yet the response was so slow."
A fitting inquiry, given the fact that Condi was plagued by reports that she was blithely enjoying a New York City vacation during the landfall and aftermath of Katrina -- a rumor-fueled scandal that was more a problem of symbolism than anything else, seeing as Rice had no real purview over the matter. Rice replied:
Well, I don't think that anybody at any level of government was prepared for something of Katrina's size and scope. It was the worst natural disaster that we had experienced. I think that we will do better ... the United States will do better the next time. But I was saddened because it exposed an America that we sometimes don't see, people who are trapped in poverty, who don't know the way out, there were school buses under water in Katrina that could have gotten people out.
I'm going to be charitable, here, and hope that Condi doesn't really mean to say that the sad thing about Katrina is that it "exposed" poverty, shattering the blissful illusions that obfuscated its existence. After Barbara Walters reaffirms that none of this technically happened on her watch, Rice continues:
What really did make me angry was the implication that some people made that President Bush allowed this to happen because these people were black. And for somebody to say that about a President of the United States...a President of the United States who I know well and ... who is my friend, I was appalled, and I cannot believe that people didn't challenge it.
So, take that, Kanye! But, in fairness, let's look at history for some perspective. You know, history? The thing that will ultimately judge the success of the Bush presidency? See, the historical record shows that President Bush hurried back from one of his beloved vacations, and woke up at 1:11 in the morning, so that he might sign a piece of legislation that sought to prolong the life of Terri Schiavo. He did not do the same when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, despite the existence of advance warnings from the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center that made all-caps predictions like: "SOME LEVEES IN THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS AREA COULD BE OVERTOPPED...MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS ... PERHAPS LONGER...HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS."
So, I don't know. The residents of the Gulf Coast sure seemed to lack some decidedly critical Terri Schiavo-esque quality that inspires vacation-ending urgency! Look for it at the intersection of "exposure of poverty" and "political expedience!"
[WATCH.]