Bush family Katrina comments draw scrutiny - Yahoo! News

Bush family Katrina comments draw scrutiny

Thu Sep 8, 3:29 AM ET

US President George W. Bush is not the only member of his prominent political family to be drawing criticism for public utterances about Hurricane Katrina: His mother has raised eyebrows too.

In widely reported comments after visting evacuees at a Texas sports arena, former first lady Barbara Bush on Monday seemed to suggest a silver lining for the "underprivileged" forced from their flooded homes in New Orleans.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said in a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them," she said.

"I think that the observation is based on someone or some people that were talking to her that were in need of a lot of assistance, people that have gone through a lot of trauma and been through a very difficult and trying time," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

"And all of a sudden, they are now getting great help in the state of Texas from some of the shelters," he said.

Her son, the president, has faced criticism for saying on September 1 that no one anticipated that New Orleans' levees would break -- even though various federal and state agencies had warned of that scenario.

In his first tour of the devastated region, Bush also praised Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Michael Brown, saying: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Brown has become a lightning rod for criticism over Washington's sluggish response to Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States, and opposition Democrats have stepped up calls for Bush to fire him.

The president has also come under fire for paying tribute to ravaged New Orleans as a place he used to visit years ago "to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much," an apparent reference to the days before he quit drinking.

In an effort to raise the spirits of the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes, Bush promised to rebuild devastated areas better than they were before, but at one point focused on the home of a powerful lawmaker.

"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch," he said on a tour of the region Friday, drawing nervous laughter.

Some Republicans winced, including one disbelieving congressional aide who told AFP: "Lott? He's focusing on Lott? Surrounded by poor people, he talks about a sitting senator?"

There have also been echoes of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when Bush urged Americans to go shopping and live their lives as normally as possible.

In some of her first remarks after the hurricane, First Lady Laura Bush told Gulf Coast evacuees: "It's very important to get your children in school. It gives children a sense of normalcy."

The White House later put together a plan to help students and school districts affected by the hurricane.

Barbara Bush had raised eyebrows two days before US troops invaded Iraq, when she told ABC television that she was not interested in media commentators' concerns about the war's potential human toll.

"Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose?" she said. "It's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

Filmmaker Michael Moore used the remark in his fiercely anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11," leading former president George Bush to call him a "slimeball" and defend his wife as "a decent, wonderful person."