President Obama toured Paterson, N.J., on Sunday and got a glimpse of the havoc Hurricane Irene wreaked. The already-struggling and now flood-ravaged city, once an industrial center, saw many homes and bridges swamped by the overflowing Passaic River. "You guys hang in there. We'll do everything we can to help you," Obama told residents while he made the rounds with Gov. Chris Christie. Meanwhile, Christie and Obama made strange bedfellows in their plea for swift and plentiful federal emergency aid to states like New Jersey. Republican Christie diverged from his party's budget quibbling and insistence that emergency aid be offset by other spending cuts, while FEMA suspended funding for its responses to previous disasters in order to avoid running out of money relieving Irene victims.
