In August, the left found it amusing to speculate about Divine judgment when Hurricane Isaac seemed to be approaching Tampa, FL as the Republican National Convention began.
Even when Isaac veered west and followed a similar path to that taken by Hurricane Gustav in 2008–which also coincided with the Republican convention, in St. Paul, MN–and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some on the left celebrated the GOP’s misfortune.
As Hurricane Sandy bears down on heavily Democratic mid-Atlantic and northeast states, no one, left or right, is joking.
To recall:
Samuel L. Jackson tweeted that it was “unfair” that the GOP had been spared the wrath of the hurricane (and quickly apologized).
Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm said of Hurricane Isaac, and its potential effect on the Republican National Convention: “I guess God has ways to shut that whole thing down.”
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post asked whether God had “forsaken the Republican party.”
David Letterman called Hurricane Isaac proof that “God is a woman.”
And Comedy Central asked: “Why Does God Hate the Republican Party?”
Certainly, some rather dull things were said by a few religious leaders about why Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans.
Yet nothing quite matched the glee that some in the left, in Hollywood, and in the media expressed that the Republican convention might be (and was) disrupted, and that voters might be reminded of the Katrina disaster, one of the low points (rightly or wrongly) of George W. Bush’s second term.
As Hurricane Sandy approaches the Atlantic coast, with several blue states about to bear the brunt, conservatives are not taking the same license. Instead they, like most Americans, are focused on the danger at hand, with preparations for evacuation and prayers for those in the storm’s path.