Posted on 01/30/2007 4:19:04 PM PST by blam
Obama lashes Bush for 'breaking his promises' to New Orleans
By Alex Massie in Washington
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 30/01/2007
Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential hopeful, used a visit to New Orleans yesterday to contrast President George W Bush's stubborn determination to persevere in Iraq, and his apparent unwillingness to do the same in the rebuilding of the hurricane-hit city.
During a special hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee in the city, Mr Obama said the President had broken his promises to the people of Louisiana by failing to do more to rebuild the city after it was hit by Katrina 18 months ago with the loss of at least 1,695 lives.
"In the weeks after Katrina, an ashamed nation looked at what had been allowed to happen here and said 'Never again. Never will we turn our backs on these people. Never will we forget what happened here'," he said.
"The President came down and said, 'We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives'.
"Just 18 months later, we heard not one word — not one word — in the President's State of the Union address about New Orleans," Mr Obama noted. "And so I have one more set of questions to ask today: 'Are we willing to do whatever it takes? To stay as long as it takes? Are we in danger of forgetting about New Orleans?' "
The city's fate has become a leitmotif for Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination. Democrats suggest that the federal government's sluggish response to the disaster symbolises Republican incompetence and indifference in equal measure.
Democrats argue that rebuilding the ruined city is an essential litmus test for the administration and that the failure to make swifter progress demonstrates a failure of national will.
"I hope we get some answers to the questions today because rebuilding the city of New Orleans is not just good for the Gulf Coast or the state of Louisiana, it's good for our nation," said Mr Obama. He questioned whether the federal government was doing its part to help New Orleans rebuild.
He noted plans to raze several low-income housing developments, adding that "I haven't seen concrete plans to meet the long-term housing needs of all the displaced people in New Orleans".
Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton, his rival for nomination as the Democrat candidate for the White House, were, however, slower to embrace the political potential and symbolic resonance of New Orleans than former vice-presidential nominee, John Edwards.
Mr Edwards, the other member of the Democratic "Big Three", announced his own presidential campaign against the backdrop of the city's battered Ninth Ward last month.
Mr Edwards used the city's plight to illustrate his populist message that America is increasingly divided along economic as well as racial lines.
Feelings ran high at the committee's hearing as a protester shouting "Stand up for Justice" interrupted Senator Joseph Lieberman as he opened the hearing. Though the protester was removed from the committee room at the Louisiana State Supreme Court, his message was met sympathetically.
"It's hard to come back here more than a year after Katrina without feeling that emotion," said Sen Lieberman, the committee's chairman. "We're here to say that we understand the work is not done, to put it mildly."
After the hearing concluded the Senators were given a bus tour of the city so they could see how much more work remains to be done in New Orleans' poorest neighbourhoods.
Donald Powell, the president's co-ordinator for the Gulf Coast recovery effort, said the administration was doing all it could to support the reconstruction effort, but said that more time was needed.
"President Bush is committed to rebuilding the Gulf Coast and rebuilding it stronger and better than it was before hurricanes Katrina and Rita," he told the committee.
Knew Orleans?
Well, it's clear that the people of Louisiana are for sale....how pathetic and how very sad for the good and decent folks there who are paying the price.
Well the people of New Orleans need to stop robbing , stabbing, and shooting and rebuild. Local government still counts, local leadership is important. The people of New Orleans re-elected an incompetent, racist mayor who failed to evacuate them or succor them at their hours of need and danger. He and an equally incompetent governor took, and continue to take, NO responsibility for the safety, welfare or recovery of their people. The dogs in the street know that NO has received tens of millions of private and public assistance. What did Nagin and Bianco do with it? Mississippi was hit just as hard as Louisiana. Yet communities there are rebuilding . Leadership matters. But New Orleans voters apparently felt race mattered more. And Obama is race-hustling right along with the best of them. Despicable.
He's paying way too much attention to his press clippings.
Divert the federal funds scheduled to flow to Illinois to waste on NOLA, if that's what Barack wants.
As usual, it's Bush's fault while state and local officials are sitting around and drinking beer in Baton Rouge.
Who the hell cares? New Orleans was a dump before Katrina. Bulldoze it under and move on already.
If the Feds poured 100 times as much money into Nagin's Chocolate Town, it would still not be enough for Obama.
What did he promise and what did he not deliver? Tell me!
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