Obama and the Nashville Flood

Yesterday, some stars helped to raise over $1.5 million in flood relief for Tennessee.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Country music singers Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum joined other entertainment stars Sunday in performing and answering phones to help raise more than $1.5 million for flood relief for Tennessee.

"If there is a silver lining, it's that the world is getting to see Nashville at its best through this tragedy," Paisley said during the telethon on the GAC Network.

Paisley kicked off the telethon with an energized version of his song "Welcome To The Future." When he finished, he looked into the audience where his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, was standing as the show's co-host.

"My wife's up there. I think it's time to start things off with a donation. We're going to donate $100,000, get it going," he said, before asking his wife with a sheepish grin, "Is that OK?"

...Like Paisley, the head of Taylor Swift's label, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, donated $100,000.

All the performers also worked the phone banks. The phone lines were to stay open after the show, and the total money raised will be known Monday.

Other performers included Martina McBride, Rodney Atkins, new artist Randy Montana, gospel singer CeCe Winans, blues singer Keb' Mo', and Christian artist Jaci Velasquez.

Singer Will Hoge closed the show with a soulful performance of the song "Washed By The Water." By the end of the song, everyone was on their feet, singing the chorus, "Down here we're washed by the water, the water can't wash us away."

The concert and telethon aired live and commercial free from Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on GAC.

All money will go to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. At least 2,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in Nashville by the deadly flooding that struck Tennessee May 1-2. Damages have been estimated at $1.5 billion and climbing.

This is a massive natural disaster, but apparently Obama can't find the time to appropriately acknowledge the suffering.

His silence is deafening.

From Christian Newswire:

Randall Terry submits the following for publication and is available for comment:

It is now glaringly obvious that President Obama has offered little moral support to the citizens of Nashville Tennessee and the surrounding areas that have been devastated by the recent flood.

Has the President visited the area? No. Has he done a "fly by?" No. Has he held a press conference discussing this tragedy, and the valor of those who are rebuilding? No.

The obvious question is, why? Why has the Obama administration all but ignored one of the largest non-hurricane disasters in American history?

Is the death toll not high enough? Are the citizens too self-reliant? Was there not enough rioting? Were there not enough suffering minorities?

Could it be that any involvement he had would not bring him much personal credit for "fixing" the crisis? Is it because there was not a big enough political payoff?

Is it because he lost Tennessee in 2008? Or perhaps he just hates country music.

Whatever the reason for his absence, it is scandalous.

The role that Nashville plays in our country's history, folklore, entertainment, culture, and especially the music that makes us laugh and love and weep is singularly unique.

For that reason alone Obama should have been on the ground offering his heartfelt sympathy, condolences, and admiration for the valor shown by those in the crisis.

Instead he is conspicuously absent, focusing on oil and its political fallout in the Gulf of Mexico.

A key secondary insult in this debacle is that the national press has all but ignored the depth of the crisis Tennesseans are facing.

I started calling friends and family asking them if they knew what was happening in Nashville. Almost none of them did. The story has not dominated the news in the DC/New York corridor; for that matter, it has barely been covered.

The net result of that is that hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans are suffering significant hardship, dozens are dead and missing, and most Americans are clueless. The benefit concert that was held to raise money for the victims of this flood was ignored by the national media.

Why? Because Obama ignored it.

All President Obama has to do is visit Nashville, or even fly Air Force One over Nashville, and hold a press conference in the air, and it will change the entire equation. Then the New York Times and the Washington Post and the major TV networks will give this tragedy the coverage it deserves.

I give credit to the stars for their efforts to raise money and public awareness of the scope of the devastating flooding.

Obama's silence has been inexcusable.

In today's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz offers his analysis of why the Tennessee flood was all but ignored by the media and the president of the United States.

As Nashville anchor Bob Sellers watched his city submerged and spent time helping colleagues whose homes were utterly ruined, he was struck by how the disaster remained a largely local story.

More than 30 people were killed in the Tennessee flooding, but there was no journalistic invasion to chronicle the misery. And Sellers, who has worked for CNBC and Fox News in New York, thinks he knows why.

"On that side of the Hudson, they really lose sight of the rest of the country," says Sellers, who grew up in Kentucky. "They view it as flyover country. . . . There's just a feeling among folks here, 'Look at what the national media are talking about, they're not giving any attention to this.' "

The reasons are more complicated -- and troubling -- than Music City's distance from the big media centers. Downtown Nashville was unfortunate enough to be under water while the news business was grappling with two other dramatic stories: the attempted bombing in Times Square and the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

...But try telling that to folks in Tennessee. Their view is that nobody died in Times Square.

"You get Tennessee pride and the feeling that if there was looting here, the national media would be all over it," says Mark Silverman, editor of the Tennessean. "I think that's unfair, but that's the way some people view it." He says he understands why the other two stories drew more attention, and that "if this had happened in another week, it would have been the flavor du jour."

Kurtz concludes, "It's too bad the news business seems able to juggle only one or two crises at a time."

It's more than "too bad." It's a disgrace.

If Obama had made a visit to the flood-ravaged area, the media would have managed to devote time to the story.

He's had weeks to tour the site and speak with the victims. His physical presence there would make a world of difference.

On Saturday, May 15, Obama went golfing.


How in good conscience can Obama be on the golf course AGAIN instead of showing his concern for the victims of the billion dollar flood in Tennessee?

His priorities are screwed up.

The one-paragraph statement released by the White House on May 4, was woefully inadequate given the scope of the disaster and the loss of life.

Would it have been too much to ask for Obama to spend a few hours viewing the damage in Tennessee instead of dragging around a golf course AGAIN?