Friday, July 18, 2014

Obama responds to tragic news with photo-ops, fundraisers

Yesterday two crises occurred: the shooting down of a passenger jet over Ukraine by Russian separatists and the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

President Obama just plodded along with photo ops and raising money for Democrats.

From the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Obama first learned of the crash Thursday morning, and then took Air Force One to Delaware to give a routine speech on transportation infrastructure. Arriving there, he stopped first for lunch at the Charcoal Pit restaurant near Wilmington. "Biden told me the burgers are pretty good," he said, in reference to his vice president, whose home state is Delaware. At the Charcoal Pit, he had lunch with a woman who had written him a letter laying out her troubles as a single mother. It's all part of a larger strategy on Mr. Obama's part to leave Washington when he can, mix it up with everyday people and draw attention to his domestic policy goals.

Taking the stage in the afternoon, Mr. Obama made his first comments on the crash, calling it a "terrible tragedy" and saying the U.S. will "offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened, and why." He said a top priority was to find out whether there were any Americans on board the flight. The remarks lasted less than a minute, and he then moved on to his planned speech about public works projects that also took aim at Republicans for opposing his policy goals.

From there, Mr. Obama flew to New York City for a pair of planned Democratic fundraising events, the first of which had about 30 people contributing up to $32,400, according to a press pool report. As he was en route, news reports popped up about Israel sending ground troops into Gaza.
Related post:

(Video) Obama says Malaysia crash "may be a terrible tragedy"

Technorati tags:

No comments: