Some say Bush’s wit is so subtle that you need a kind of special radar to detect it. Others say he has the perfect sense of humor for our time. To this debate, we add another piece of evidence, that time Bush jokingly nicknamed a South Carolina state senator after Hurricane Katrina because her name is Katrina.
“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,” he told a town hall in Lexington, South Carolina. “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.”
The Katrina in question, Katrina Shealy, told CNN she thought the comment was “sweet,” explaining, “Everybody in my family, when they had Hurricane Katrina, it was kind of like a big joke in my family because I’m the feisty one in the family. ... I’m the one that kinda bosses everybody around.”