What did Bush mean by this? Is it a joke?

Through the challenges, the President has kept his human touch. Touring New Orleans last week, he met a man who had survived for days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. "Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?" Bush asked. Meanwhile, lobbyists and outside Republican strategists are pleading anew for a White House shake-up, arguing that if this were a business, the management would be thrown out. "The Bushies have proved that five people can run the country for four years and one day," a G.O.P. congressional aide complained. The critics are conducting their conversations with the President's men in polite code, such as asking how they can help. "There is a drumbeat," a Bush friend explained, "but it's not resonant in the White House. These are people this Administration, and the President in particular, disdains. You scrape 'em off your shoes--and keep going."

National Guardsmen and state officials led the new arrivals, hand in hand, to get food and medical attention from a makeshift triage unit at the National Guard air base. The evacuees were then quickly ushered to buses that will take all 300 refugees arriving Saturday night and early today to Camp Williams near Bluffdale.
Most of the evacuees carried small bags or had nothing as they streamed from the commercial jetliner onto the pavement. Below, flight crews unloaded the baggage of sparse belongings wrapped in trash bags.
...
"It's just to extend our heartfelt welcome to people from Louisiana who have been through so much," said state Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, who is black and said he wanted to be among the welcoming party because he thought it would help comfort the refugees to see a little diversity.
...
The last time Darrell Johnson saw his wife, Carol, he put her in a rowboat that was transporting residents off their roofs to safety. As of Saturday, he still had not heard from her.
"I lost everything I own," he said.
Johnson, a retired schoolteacher, said when water first started going into his house, "I thought it would be a minor thing, then whoosh."....
"You're hungry and ignorant to what's going on," he said of what it was like waiting for help.
Once Johnson stepped off the plane in Salt Lake City, "It was like a great weight lifted off my shoulders. I don't know if I can explain it," he said.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600161120,00.html