Obama Has a Katrina Moment Planned Today

The One will be winging his way to New Orleans for another chance to bash Bush and throw money at an unsolvable problem. You'd think the folks in the underwater city would be glad to see the president, but of course, they're grumpy:

Slightly more than four years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, President Obama is traveling to New Orleans today to fulfill a campaign promise to survey first-hand the city’s recovery.

…But before the president even steps foot on the ground in Louisiana, critics in the region have taken aim at the administration on several fronts: They fault him for waiting nine months before going to New Orleans, staying for only four hours and not going to any of the other states affected by the devastating 2005 storm, such as Mississippi and Alabama.

Tommy Longo, the mayor of Waveland, Miss., a town that was leveled by Katrina, said that Obama was “missing the Ground Zero of Katrina.”

“We haven’t whined. My citizens get up every day and they go to work, rebuilding their city from under the ground up, and it would mean a lot to them if they knew that they were on his mind,” Longo said of the president. “It would mean a lot to everyone if he actually put his feet on the ground here in Waveland.”

Even Louisiana officials have voiced displeasure with the trip and want more from the president.

“I think the trip could have been longer,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a television interview Wednesday. “But I want to say that people are not angry. If they’re anything, they’re just a little disappointed and frustrated, but understanding that the president has a lot on his plate.

Stretches of the Mississippi coastline were swept clean as much as five miles inland, but Mississippi has a Republican governor and voted for McCain, so they'll be skipped.