THERE'S A STORM COMING

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Brace for the coming storm

By Kelvin Wade
From page A11 | November 01, 2012 | 7 Comments

Many news organizations ran a photo of 72-year-old Elaine Belviso being rescued by Suffolk County police via boat from her home in New York, where Hurricane Sandy trapped her overnight. First-responders going into harm’s way to help folks is a reminder that we Americans are at our best in a crisis.

More than 300 blood drives were canceled because of the hurricane so the Red Cross is urging people to donate blood. Also, to make cash donations, visit www.redcross.org, call 800-RED-CROSS or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

I have no doubt Americans will rise to the need and provide help for their fellow citizens.

This week, we’ve seen the spirit of bipartisanship embodied by New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie and our Democratic President Barack Obama.

Christie told NBC, “The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA.” He later told MSNBC, “. . . the president has been all over this and he deserves great credit. (He) told me to call him if I needed anything and he absolutely means it and it’s been very good working with the president and his administration.” He later chastised hosts at Fox News when he suspected they were politicizing the storm.

Christie reported that the president never brought up politics in any of their phone calls. This is as it should be. A huge, destructive storm like this doesn’t spare red states or blue states. The political leaning of homeowners matters not to floodwaters. And the party registrations of the nearly 50 dead people don’t amount to anything to their loved ones.

But just when you think we’re answering Abraham Lincoln’s call to the better angels of our nature, George W. Bush’s FEMA director Michael Brown, the man Bush said was doing a “heckuva job” (only if “heckuva job” means allowing New Orleans to drown during Katrina) had to slither out from under his rock and weigh in on President Obama’s handling of Sandy.

Brown said President Obama apparently reacted too quickly to the storm and contrasted it to the response to Benghazi, Libya, that certain elements in the Republican Party have been politicizing for weeks.

And at a “storm relief” rally with Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain feebly attacked the president once again over Libya.

I didn’t expect any sense of common purpose and unity to last until Election Day, but I did think it was going to last at least 24 hours.

America-as-she-is once again treads on America-as-she-could-be. In today’s America, everything is partisan. There can be no commonness of purpose. No time out for tragedy. Bipartisanship is another word for weakness. Compromise is capitulation. Statesmanship is self-indulgent folly. Humility is an apology.

If you reach across the aisle, it better be to shove the other side down.

Four years ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told us his most important goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. One wonders where we’d be if the Republicans’ No. 1 priority had been to work with the president to right our economy.

Experts called Hurricane Sandy a “Frankenstorm.” The real “Frankenstorm” comes next week in the aftermath of the most bitterly contested election in my lifetime.

While Sandy broke our infrastructure, the fires of hatred after the election may break our national character. Peace.

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ADDITIONAL NOTES: Everyone's sick of the election. We're sick of the ads. Sick of the news. Sick of the posts on Facebook and the unfriending and fights. But we're under the impression that it all ends next week. It doesn't. It BEGINS. Half of the country is going to be PISSED. Not just disappointed. PISSED. If the President is reelected, what are the odds that the Republicans are going to want to work with him like Gov. Christie for the good of all Americans? Or will they double down on their animosity? Their track record is doubling down.

And if Mitt Romney wins, do you really think the Democrats are going to rush to work with him? Why would they? Wouldn't they be justified in saying their primary goal is to make sure he becomes a one term president? After the marginalization by the Romney campaign, what are minorities going to think of a Romney Administration? What about the 47% Romney derided. We're going to have an electorate that is bitterly divided. Probably more divided and angry than at any time since the Civil War.