For days now, the news has been full of predictions…Hurricane predictions. Irene has been bearing down on our east coast as it crossed the Bahamas. You never really know with a hurricane…category 3, category 4, category 2…as they move they gain and lose power but, all the computer models showed this one WAS going to hit the coast at SOME strength.

This storm was so immense that when it hit and as it rolled up the coast, it would affect nearly 20% of all Americans. There would be flooding, wind damage, coastal erosion and mass power outages from North Carolina to Boston.

We have known of this storm and its potential for damage for nearly a week. Emergency officials in those areas expected to be hit and hit hard, ordered mandatory evacuations, ordered extra body bags, issued stern warnings that if you stayed, and then needed help, it would not be coming to you because you were told to leave and you didn’t.

One official even put forth the order that IF you decide NOT to evacuate, write your name, in indelible ink, on an index card and place it in your left shoe so that later, your body can be easily identified.

Every so often, we heard from the director of FEMA or our Secretary of Homeland Security but for the most part it has been the Mayors of cities and towns, their local emergency directors or the news anchors.

It wasn’t until Friday, the day before the hurricane was to hit the east coast, that we heard one single thing from the President. He rolled up his sleeves and stood before a hastily set up podium and spoke.  What sage words did he have for us?

THE PRESIDENT:  “Good morning, everybody. I want to say a few words about Hurricane Irene, urge Americans to take it seriously, and provide an overview of our ongoing federal preparations for what’s likely to be an extremely dangerous and costly storm.

I’ve just convened a conference call with senior members of my emergency response team and….

…directed them to make sure that we are bringing all federal resources to bear and deploying them properly to cope not only with the storm but also its aftermath. I’ve also spoken this morning with governors and mayors of major metropolitan areas along the Eastern Seaboard to let them know that this administration is in full support of their efforts to prepare for this storm and stands ready to fully support their response efforts. And we will continue to stay in close contact with them.

I cannot stress this highly enough: If you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. Don’t wait. Don’t delay. We all hope for the best, but we have to be prepared for the worst.  All of us have to take this storm seriously. You need to listen to your state and local officials, and if you are given an evacuation order, please follow it.

Just to underscore this point: We ordered an aircraft carrier group out to sea to avoid this storm yesterday.So if you’re in the way of this hurricane, you should be preparing now.

If you aren’t sure how to prepare your families or your home or your business for a hurricane or any other emergency, then you can visit Ready.gov — that’s Ready.gov — or Listo.gov.  That’s Listo.gov.

Now, since last weekend, FEMA has been deploying its Incident Management Assistance Teams to staging areas in communities up and down the coast. FEMA has millions of liters of water, millions of meals, and tens of thousands of cots and blankets, along with other supplies, pre-positioned along the Eastern Seaboard. And the American Red Cross has already begun preparing shelters in North Carolina and other states.

These resources are all being coordinated with our state and local partners, and they stand ready to be deployed as necessary. But, again, if you are instructed to evacuate, please do so. It’s going to take time for first responders to begin rescue operations and to get the resources we’ve pre-positioned to people in need.

So the more you can do to be prepared now — making a plan, make a supply kit, know your evacuation route, follow instructions of your local officials — the quicker we can focus our resources after the storm on those who need help the most.

To sum up, all indications point to this being a historic hurricane. Although we can’t predict with perfect certainty the impact of Irene over the next few days, the federal government has spent the better part of last week working closely with officials in communities that could be affected by this storm to see to it that we are prepared.

So now is the time for residents of these communities — in the hours that remain — to do the same.  And FEMA and Craig Fugate, the director of FEMA, will be keeping people closely posted in the next 24, 48 hours. Thank you very much.

This 3-4 minute statement was delivered by the President from Martha’s Vineyard rather than from the White House because the President was on vacation. Yes, he cut his vacation short, by 12 hours, to return to Washington but his wife and kids initially were not but decided to leave with the President.  The statement was rather meaningless and made more so by the fact that the First lady and the children WERE going to stay for the last 12 hours of their precious vacation and  not heed the words delivered by the President.

Now, the predictions.

Once this is over, expect the President to boast of how he presided over the preparedness of federal, state and local agencies so that IF the storm had been worse, they were ready…insinuating that HE was in a better position to act in the wake of the hurricane than Bush was after Katrina.

Really, you can’t compare Irene with Katrina.

Katrina was a category 4 or 5 when it slammed New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf region. New Orleans was built below sea level on one side and below a massive lake on the other. The levees surrounding New Orleans had been ignored for decades as local politicians spent the money sent by the federal government to shore the levees up other things and everybody knew they would not withstand a category 4 or 5 storm.

The people in New Orleans were told to get out and most did not. Once the levees broke, before the levees broke, local officials did nothing to move people in danger to safety despite havng hundreds of busses…parked…in various lots.

AFTER the storm, Bush took a lot of flak from liberals because he didn’t send in the national guard in the blink of an eye even though such a move COULD have been enacted but ONLY if the Governor requested it, which she did not.

While Katrina was a 4-5 category hurricane, Irene was predicted to be at level 3 but in reality had slowed to a level 2 by the time it made landfall. Yes, still a damaging storm with sustained winds near 85 mph but not the sort of pounding Katrina packed.

Levees surrounding a population center are not in play with Irene as they were with Katrina.

Many more people did evacuate ahead of Irene than ahead of Katrina because they saw in New Orleans what happens if you don’t, not because Obama told them they should.

None of this however will prevent liberals and Obama from making the comparison and crowing about how their actions saved lives because this is, after all, happening during a reelection campaign.

If indeed, liberals can provide evidence and proof that Obama’s playing golf saved lives, I’d like to see it.

Expect massive federal spending in the wake of Irene. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be federal funds spent in the cleanup effort but expect massive OVER spending and waste, not all of which can be directly blamed on Obama as government is by nature, wasteful, but this is Obama’s watch in an economy that is already at the bottom of a very deep hole.

Expect the mainstream press to ignore wasteful spending.

While we’re on the topic of the mainstream press, you should not be at all surprised if that element crows also about the Obama preparedness compared to Bush and Katrina. They will ignore Obama’s lack luster or non performance in regard to the fires in Texas, the massive flooding in the Midwest or tornadoes in the southeast but they WILL focus on his response to this storm because, this is happening in a reelection cycle and Obama was their candidate in 08 and to do otherwise would be to admit they invested unwisely then.

If you want to draw a comparison between Obama’s reactions to hurricane Irene and a President’s reaction to other natural disasters, then draw that comparison between Obama and Obama.

Fires in Texas, flooding in the Midwest and tornadoes in the southeast vs Hurricane Irene.

The fires, the floods and the tornadoes did not directly affect the Obama voting base did they?

Irene did.

If Obama’s blue state reaction doesn’t have you seeing red…

It should.