The empty chair strikes again — nonunion recovery workers turned away in NJ

When President Obama tried to look all presidential and leaderlike by pretending he was paying attention to hurricane Sandy, he said as he toured damage and recovery efforts in New Jersey: "We are not going to tolerate red tape, we are not going to tolerate bureaucracy."

Now comes this story in which utility crews from northern Alabama say they were turned away by the IBEW in New Jersey because they were nonunion.

I sincerely hope this story is false. I really do. Maybe there's some kind of miscommunication. But so far there is no comment — or denial — from the IBEW, New Jersey or the Obama Administration.

We only have what the Alabama crews tell us — they went to help in New Jersey and were turned away. They then went to New York where their help was accepted from a nonunion utility.

Besides the sheer outrage of it -- letting something like union affiliation get in the way of rescue work -- this seems like another example of Obama saying things that he really does not mean.

This story hit the wires late yesterday. The president should be going ballistic over this. Where is the president and his promise not to "tolerate red tape ... bureaucracy." We should have heard something by now.

But, like Benghazi, he's gone again. The empty chair strikes again.

PS -- Decatur Utilities denies the report explaining it as a miscommunication: "As we waited for clarification, we became aware that Seaside Heights had received the assistance they needed from other sources, To be clear, at no time were our crews "turned away" from the utility in Seaside Heights.

"In connection with state and regional public power associations, Decatur Utilities attempted to contact other areas that needed assistance. However, based on the uncertainty of union requirements that we could not agree to and the uncertainty of whether a resolution could be reached, we ultimately made the decision to return them to Decatur after being stalled in the Virginia area most of the day on Thursday."