The Good President [continued] -- Double Standards

The death of federalism.

This WSJ editorial points out the blatant double standards applied to President Bush, who was blamed for the failure of State and local authorities in the case of Katrina and President Obama, who largely escaped criticism when federal incompetence and regulations blocked any effective response to the BP oil spill on the part of State and local governments. The point is not just the obvious one that Bush has frequently been subject to unfair criticism, far more so than Obama, but that in both cases the national media disregarded the role played by State and local authorities in order to focus on the more politically potent critique of national and international [in the case of BP] actors. Read the piece here.