Posted on 09/18/2005 4:29:44 AM PDT by Utah Girl
America could become a less divided society as result of hurricane Katrina, former US President Bill Clinton said today.
“Americans were profoundly disturbed by the losses suffered and by the sense that maybe our government did not perform as well as it should have,” Mr Clinton said.
“There was a profound sense of grief at the magnitude of the losses and not only the death but the dislocation of a million people.
“And I think people were very sensitive to the fact that it disproportionately affected Americans of colour, principally African Americans, and low income Americans.
“So I think it is likely to make us far more sensitive to things that divide us, to fight them, and largely to make us far more sensitive to the importance of effective, good government after repeated decades of often voting for the party that condemned government.
“You know, we all hate government until we need it. So as a Democrat I think that is a positive thing for our country.”
George Bush has appointed his predecessor Bill Clinton, along with his own father, George Bush Senior, a special envoy for New Orleans, and the surrounding area.
Mr Clinton said he had ordered a project to stop flooding in the area while he was in the White House, but this was scrapped in 2003 “presumably because of Iraq”.
“I do not know whether, had that project continued, it would have mitigated the flooding. Maybe someone knows. I don’t know,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“New Orleans had a lot of poor people, when I was President we reduced the number of people living in poverty by about eight million. That is starting to go back up again.”
Like many US cities, New Orleans was very divided in to rich and poor areas, the former president said. “The more we can integrate this the more likely we are to avoid the kinds of consequences we had,” he said.
Mr Clinton said the thing that “pained me most” was that those taking the decisions did not appear to understand how poor people lived.
“I don’t believe there was deliberate racism in the response to this at all,” he said. However, the authorities obviously had not “understood how poor people live,” he continued.
“People without cars, or people taking care of aunts and uncles or parents or grandparents without cars, people without any insurance on their home or goods thinking they couldn’t leave because it was all they had and they had no way to insure it.
“Poor people are no less intelligent, by and large, and no lazier, by and large, than the rest of the population.
“Most of them are hard working people for whom life didn’t present a lot of breaks but they do live differently and it was painful to see them pay a disproportionate share of the burden because they just couldn’t get up and evacuate in response to an order.
“You had to have a system there to help them extricate themselves. I hope we learn something about all this as a people that will bring us together not just across racial lines but income lines as well.”
Mr Clinton said his wife Hillary, a New York senator, would make a “magnificent” president if, as tipped, she decides to stand.
“The truth is I don’t know what is going to happen on that,” he said.
“My wife is running for re-election. I’m biased I know but I’m a good judge and she has been a fabulous, she has been a great senator – an unusually effective one in a short period of time.
“She is going to present herself to the voters of her state and ask them to ratify her service and I think they will.
“But she can only think of that right now and we will cross that other bridge if it comes up, I have no idea whether it will.
“If she ever were to run and win she would be a magnificent choice, she’d do a great job.”
Will this man ever shut up and go away??? He always had the plan for whatever is going on at the moment. And people swallow his swill.
I cannot set down my true feelings about this person without lapsing into sulpherous profanity.
Truth be known, W would love to knock the slug off his bar stool.
The first Black American President, above all, should know that a great percentage of the darker colored citizens down there in New Orleans and elsewhere were NOT African Americans, having been from various other places in the islands and elsewhere, and migrating to N.O. over the centuries.
I am questioning his mental state if he expects anyone other than Eleanore Clift to believe this, or if he believes it himself.
Yes, or getting banned. ;-)
Clinton has been mentally ill since his adolescence.
Hey Bubba why don't you keep your filthy, lying mouth shut, creep?
Listen to this lying, stinking b*stard.
“New Orleans had a lot of poor people, when I was President we reduced the number of people living in poverty by about eight million. That is starting to go back up again.”
What a load. If only most Americans knew that his type of politics cause poverty.................but, the media will never tell the truth.
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The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
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Now if he could only divide himself from his narcissism.
Looking for a Lewinsky are we?
What did he do about it, like everything else, exactly nothing.
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Very true. He'll be all over the news for at least six months of 2008.
Do you know that for a fact?
Or is W just a nice guy? Yes, he's gone after the Islamofacists, but he needs to take the gloves off and go after his DemonRAT political enemies on the domestic front.
What about that White House movie screening where he invited the Bloated One, only to get bashed within a week?
Clinton is trailer trash scum and needs to be treated as such, otherwise he'll keep trying to undermine W's policies.
I'm not going after you, I just hate it when W lays back and takes it. WE are right, W is right, we need to take these people head on.
There is a silver lining in what he is doing. Hillary Clinton knows what he is up to and can't do anything about it. Bill Clinton is working on his legacy at her expense. If she does run in 08, he will have helped to create a backlash against her. After all is said and done, he does not want her ever to get near the White House again. It wouldn't be good for his legacy.
Do I know it for as a fact? As much as I know anything about human nature.
Oh, OK, thought you had some inside info.
Well, he's a closet liberal, so as long as he proposed it (doubtful) it's as good as actually doing it.
Black ninjas, anyone?
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