by Jonathan Turley at Res ipsa loquitor — The thing speaks for itself
Democratic strategist and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once stated that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” That philosophy seemed to be the playbook for the media and pundits immediately after the flood in Texas as many rushed to claim that it was caused by Trump budget cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS). From George Stephanopoulos to Rosie O’Donnell, the hoax was spread that there was an understaffing at the NWS that may have caused these deaths. It did not matter that it was an easy matter to confirm or that the underlying claims of understaffing the NWS team were false..
The weaponization of such tragedies has become commonplace in American politics. Previously, Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer bizarrely attempted to blame the crash of a Mexican ship in New York and air accidents around the world on Trump cuts.
There are legitimate reasons to question whether cuts to agencies like the NWS might impact key programs, such as weather warning systems. There are also questions about whether long-standing forecast modeling failed to capture the severity of this particularly storm. However, basic honesty and decency would demand a modicum of inquiry before blaming the NWS for a failure that caused mass deaths, including a large number of children.
Indeed, the rush to claim that the tragedy was caused by understaffing can make it more difficult to find any real failures in the system. It is also possible that this was a convergence of weather systems that happened so fast (and late at night) that few citizens could take meaningful action. Some reports indicate that the river rose by 20 feet in only 45 minutes.
Nevertheless, many rushed to take political advantage of the tragedy. Grant Stern,…
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