On Monday, a nation led by a ruler with dictatorial tendencies was devastated by a storm of biblical proportions for which its government was woefully unprepared. Which may explain why the White House trotted out First Lady Laura Bush rather than her husband the president to answer questions at a press conference yesterday about the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar. Given his own cataclysmic handling of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, President Bush no doubt preferred to stay out of the line of fire.
Mrs. Bush's prepared remarks and responses to reporters' questions showed why the White House concluded that the safest course for President Bush was to stay away. Had she issued these statements in September 2005, observers would have assumed the First Lady was criticizing her husband:

"It's troubling that many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets -- such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America -- sounded the alarm. Although they were aware of the threat, Burma's state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm's path.
The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta's failure to meet its people's basic needs."

This exchange about the Burmese government's response - and responsibility - for the staggering cyclone death toll of 22,000 is particularly telling:

Q: Why do you think that the government didn't allow the state-run media to post those warnings?
MRS. BUSH: I don't know. I have no idea.
Q: Quick follow on that. Do you think that they have blood on their hands for that lack of warning?
MRS. BUSH: Well, I just think it's very, very important -- that we know already that they are very inept; that they have not been able to govern in a way that lets their company -- country, for one thing, build an economy. This is a country that's rich in natural resources. Their natural resources are being depleted as they sell them off, as far as we can tell from the outside, for the financial benefit of the regime itself and not for the good of the people. We know that.

Of course, the parallels between the Bush and Burmese preparation for and responses to Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Nargis aren't perfect. On August 28, 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Hagin issued a mandatory evacuation order for his city. That afternoon, the National Weather Service published a dire advisory for the category 4 to 5 storm, warning "most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer" and "at least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure," while concluding "water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."
President Bush knew all of this. Video footage of a briefing Bush received the day before Katrina hit revealed that the President was warned that "that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers." As CBS News reported:

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

Four days later on September 1, 2005, George W. Bush issued the statement that defined his administration historic bungling of Hurricane Katrina:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

At Monday's press conference, no reporter asked the First Lady why her husband wasn't there himself to address the Burmese crisis. (There were, however, several probing questions about her daughter Jenna's wedding in Texas this weekend.) This is as close as the American media got to inquiring about the President Bush's glaring absence:

Q: Mrs. Bush, why such an historic interest? This is a first, for a First Lady to come to this podium and talk about a cyclone. Why such a historic interest?
MRS. BUSH: Well, you know I've been interested in Burma for a long time. It started really with an interest in Aung San Suu Kyi and reading her works and just the story of a Nobel Prize winner who's been under house arrest for so long,

It's true that Mrs. Bush has emerged as something of a spokesperson for the White House when it comes to the causes of human rights and democracy in Myanmar. But that's not why she was at the podium on Monday. The day before George W. Bush was to award Aung San Suu Kyi the Congressional Gold Medal for her courage, he was too cowardly to face the media and relive his own historic failure over another horrific storm three years ago.