Aide: Obama video doesn't claim racism

• Tweet

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A former White House aide Wednesday dismissed claims that President Obama implied in a video that race affected the pace of help for Hurricane Katrina victims.

Speaking on "CBS This Morning," former Obama press secretary and senior adviser Robert Gibbs said he was "a little amazed" that the comments Obama made in June 2007, when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, had "somehow caused a kerfuffle five years later because somebody like (Fox News host) Sean Hannity decide to re-air what was covered."

The video was re-released Tuesday by Fox News and the Daily Caller.

Gibbs said Obama pointed out in the speech at Hampton University that "the incompetence that surrounded the federal government's response to Katrina was colorblind."

Parts of the re-released video hadn't been seen on YouTube since 2007.

The Daily Caller said some of the speech was "racially charged and at times angry."

In sections of the video highlighted by Hannity and the Daily Caller, Obama criticized the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, while another part focused on helping inner city residents find work.

The Romney campaign is denying responsibility for the release of the Obama video and the Republican National Committee has not commented about it.

Follow us on Twitter at @UPIDebates for complete UPI.com coverage of the 2012 Presidential Debates.