Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush -- whose 2016 run for the GOP Presidential nomination has seen him fall from presumptive nominee to also-ran -- once again invoked bad memories of his brother's disastrous presidential tenure by attempting to make a Hurricane Katrina joke while campaigning in South Carolina, reports CNN.
Complimenting South Carolina State Sen. Katrina Shealy after she introduced him at a townhall in Lexington, Bush nicknamed the lawmaker after the hurricane that killed nearly 2,000 people.
The government's poor response to the 2005 natural disaster under former President George W. Bush is considered one of the low points of an administration that was full of them
"I don't know why your great state senator reminds me of a hurricane. But she does. She's strong and she's fierce, and she's solving problems for you at the state capitol," Bush told the assembled crowd. "You should be honored to have her as your elected official. I hope you agree with that. That should be your nickname. In the Bush family, we always give out nicknames. Yours is now Hurricane Katrina."
While South Carolina didn't receive the battering from the Katrina that devastated Louisiana and Mississippi, President George W. Bush did declare a state of emergency existed in South Carolina in the hurricane's wake.
The former president was widely criticized for sitting on his hands while the hurricane pounded the southern coastal states, and for complimenting former FEMA head Michael Brown with "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," despite the department's ineptitude responding to what turned out to be the costliest national disaster in U.S. history.
Previously Jeb Bush's presidential campaign was disrupted by his relationship to the former president when he defended his brother's terrorism record despite the events of 9/11/2001.
