President Joe Biden is heading to California today to tour some of the areas impacted by the recent “atmospheric river” flooding that has recently struck much of the state. He’s taking along the FEMA Administrator and will be joined by Governor Gavin Newsom. They plan to visit Santa Cruz and look at the damage caused to the piers there by the storms. These types of dog and pony shows are a regular feature of presidential administrations of both parties. But at some point, we need to ask why we’re still doing this in the 21st century. What is it exactly that Biden, Newsom, and Deanne Criswell will be contributing to the situation? And do visits like this sometimes wind up doing more harm than good? (Associated Press)

President Joe Biden is set to tour damage and be briefed on recovery efforts after devastating storms hit California in recent weeks, killing at least 20 people and causing destruction across 41 of the state’s 58 counties.

The president, accompanied by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and local officials, will visit Thursday the storm-damaged Capitola Pier in Santa Cruz County, where he will meet with business owners and affected residents.

Biden will also meet with first responders and deliver remarks on supporting the state’s recovery at nearby Seacliff State Park.

The first time I remember writing about this (for another outlet long ago) was when George W. Bush toured Florida after a spate of hurricanes in 2004. He was filmed handing out bottled water to displaced residents. Those were some particularly bad hurricanes to be sure, with four of the names being retired from the meteorologists’ rotation of storm names. And a lot of people were displaced, so the need for supplies and shelter was great.

But the reality of what was happening behind the scenes was only learned later and it didn’t generate a lot of media coverage. The arrival of the President and his motorcade filled with Secret Service agents actually shut down traffic for a while on the few roads that remained passable. Rescue workers were delayed. The swarms of reporters who were eager to film the POTUS helping the survivors also added to the general clutter and confusion.

In the end, what did the visit really accomplish? The President may have handed out water to a few dozen people, but there were tens of thousands of people in need of aid and rescue. It was a net negative by any reasonable standard of measurement. What it really amounted to was a photo op to make Bush look better.

Using that as our measuring stick, precisely what will Joe Biden be doing to help out the people impacted by the floods and the torrential rainfall? Will he be personally taking a rubber boat out into the floodwaters and bringing people to safety? Obviously not. He’ll be cluttering up the scene just as Bush did nearly twenty years ago.

We are also informed that presidents need to “survey the damage” when making decisions about emergency declarations and FEMA grants. But this is 2023. We have armies of drones in the air from both the media and local government agencies. The damage could be “surveyed” from the comfort of the Oval Office. And presidents are not experts in damage evaluation anyway. Engineers and other subject matter experts wind up making those calls.

The President wants to look empathetic and “involved” in addressing problems. I get it. He’s a politician. And as I already said, presidents of both parties do this when the opportunity arises, so this is a bipartisan problem. Perhaps it’s time to put a stop to this pointless practice and let the real rescue workers get on with their jobs.