Good Lord. MSNBC is gonna have to really kick up the spin cycle to beat CNN’s hackery on this one.

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) – As Hurricane Irene strikes and spooks large parts of the U.S., Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is not yet ready to praise President Barack Obama’s handling of the storm.

The Texas governor appeared at a county GOP picnic in Des Moines on Saturday. During an exchange with reporters, Perry was asked if the president has been an effective leader during a week that saw two menacing natural disasters: an earthquake and currently the hurricane.

Huh? The unexpected earthquake resulted in no deaths and almost no damage, and the hurricane is still making its way up the coast. I’m pretty sure Katrina-era officials have been judged by their post-storm response — not their pre-storm statements and phone calls.

I know, let’s judge George Bush’s Katrina record based upon his pre-storm efforts of taking phone calls and communicating with local officials, rather than looking at the federal government’s response following the storm. That sound okay, CNN? No? Why not? Oh, right, because you don’t judge storm response until the storm actually, you know, hits.

Perry’s response was simply to praise local officials for their handling to date, while saying he’ll withhold judgement on Obama’s response until the storm is over and the feds actually have to respond. The horror! Why, he must be a Tea Party hack who wants deny Obama even the most obvious praise.