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Where was Obama during Katrina? Trick question

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Yet the rising Democratic star did meet with Katrina evacuees the following month in Houston, alongside former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in a heartwarming display of bipartisan assistance. Ah, those were the days.

These days the right-wing policy of BOF -- blame Obama first -- in response to any crisis is alive, fierce and working overtime in "whataboutism." That's a term for the old Cold War-era Soviet practice of responding to all criticism from us Americans with criticism of America.

If we didn't like their police-state justice, for example, their leaders might well respond, "What about your segregation of black people in your Southern states?" So what if one had nothing to do with the other? The purpose of whataboutism is to distract, delay and defuse criticism by changing the subject, sort of like Trump when he's asked to reveal his income tax returns.

But in our social network age, we also need to talk about whataboutism.

Bots, I am learning, are roving and sometimes mischievous web programs that can interact with computer systems and humans like a human.

Remember the old saying about how a lie can go around the world before the truth gets its shoes on? That's what bad bots do -- quite literally.

Many wonder, could the Obama/Katrina tweets be another misinformation invasion by Russian bots? Don't the Russians know who was president during Katrina, either?

 

Snopes called Russian influence doubtful, quoting Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow for information defense at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. After scanning mentions of Obama and Katrina between Aug. 24 and 30, he said most of the tweets mocked the idea of blaming Katrina reaction on Obama.

That's a relief for those of us who care about facts.

Nevertheless, Snopes reminds us, an August 2013 survey conducted by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling found that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans believed that Obama was to blame for the poorly executed federal response to Katrina -- and another 44 percent were unsure whether Obama or George W. Bush was at fault.

Does this tell you that people believe what they want to believe? Sure. That's a sentiment that crosses party lines. Why, human nature asks us, let inconvenient facts get in the way of a satisfying rant?

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)


(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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