From The New York Times:
Former President Bill Clinton, asked by President Bush to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offered harsh criticism of the administration’s disaster-relief effort on Sunday, saying “you can’t have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up.”
Mr. Clinton’s comments in an interview on the ABC News program “This Week” could prove awkward for the White House, given President Bush’s eagerness to involve his Democratic predecessor in a high-profile role to raise money for the hurricane’s victims. His remarks came days after the president gave a televised speech from New Orleans, trying to seize the momentum amid other attacks on the administration’s performance…
Mr. Clinton argued that lower-income Americans had done better under the economic policies of his administration than they are doing now, saying the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines.
Clinton also criticized Bush for his handling of Iraq and the budget. Democrats, I presume, are saying to themselves that it’s about time. Clinton has been critical of his successor before, but not to this degree — and certainly not in one single television appearance. Indeed, this may be yet one more indication that Bush is in serious trouble, now that Clinton, more diplomat than adversary through Bush’s first 4+ years (last year’s election campaign notwithstanding), has emerged as one of his more forceful and credible critics.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.