Posted on 01/23/2007 3:54:01 AM PST by Ellesu
WASHINGTON — Gov. Kathleen Blanco called on Congress on Monday to create a bipartisan commission to see if Republican Party politics factored in the federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Blanco’s call comes just days after former FEMA Director Michael Brown said the White House considered politics while planning to deal with Hurricane Katrina.
Brown said Friday that the White House was considering federalizing Louisiana because Blanco was a Democrat. Similar measures were not considered for Mississippi, which was headed by Gov. Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, he said.
On Monday, Brown wouldn’t name who made those comments.
“But I was on Air Force One when this all was being discussed,” he said.
Brown said Blanco was on Air Force One that day, but was in a different part of the presidential jet and didn’t hear the conversation. The plane was in Louisiana during one of President Bush’s trips to the state after the storm.
Blanco’s statement Monday presses the issue of White House politics.
“All of us were sickened to hear that while thousands of our citizens were suffering during Hurricane Katrina, political operatives in the White House were playing party politics,” the statement says.
To allow for “a full recovery and more adequately respond to future disasters,” Blanco called on Congress to:
Create a bipartisan commission to investigate the immediate and long-term federal response to what she called “the largest and most-catastrophic natural disasters in U.S. history.” Investigate the role of the White House political advisers throughout the two hurricanes. Buffer the Federal Emergency Management Agency from “political agendas and partisan politics.” Achieve parity in distribution of federal recovery dollars through standard criteria based on actual damage and need. Blanco and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who also has called for an independent commission, have complained about recent federal funding allocations to the state.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the state would receive $86.6 million or 49 percent of the money available for hospital and health care grants. Neighboring Mississippi received 38 percent. Landrieu noted that Louisiana suffered 70 percent of the damage.
Likewise, state delegation members complained last month when FEMA proposed that almost 70 percent of the $388 million in money available for alternative disaster housing go to Mississippi while Louisiana suffered three times the housing damage.
But Blanco and Landrieu are unlikely to get their commission hearings.
U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., has said he will not pursue White House documents sought last year in the 21 Katrina hearings held by the committee he now chairs, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
The panel accumulated more than 820,000 pages of documents, heard testimony from 74 witnesses and interviewed 290 more.
Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., isn’t likely to create a special panel, instead allowing each of her committees to conduct what her spokesman Drew Hammill called Monday “necessary oversight.”
For example, the House Financial Services Committee already has announced that it intends to look into insurance coverage in the wake of the storms.
U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., dismissed Brown’s comments over the weekend, calling him “an idiot and a failure.”
U.S. Rep. Charles “Charlie” Melancon, D-Napoleonville, sat on the House Katrina Task Force, which also held dozens of hearings on the federal government’s response to the storms.
Melancon would like to see more probes into how the government handled the emergency.
He is “not looking for a witch hunt or to assign blame,” Melancon’s spokeswoman Robin Winchell said Monday. “He just wants to find out what went wrong in the federal response to Katrina so it doesn’t happen again.”
Blanco was getting instructions from the DNC during the crisis.
Considering the way Barbour and Mississippi responded and dealt with this and they way Blanco and Louisiana dealt with this is there any sane person out there who could suggest federalizing Louisiana would have been a bad idea?
But it was not because Blanco is a Democrat. It's because she's incompetent.
It's rather amusing to see "Brownie" go from being universally villified by the DBM as an incompetent boob to being a quotable expert.
I knew that would happen the moment he "resigned."
The media's been covering that up for years, and they'll continue to cover that up, no matter how many "investigations" the Dims demand. IMO, Blanco feels like she needs to do more than play up Jindal's race to beat him this time around, and this is her attempt to get that extra help.
All he had to do was come down with (or fake) a profound case of BDS, and it was inevitable that the media would ressurect him.
Blank-O caused her own problem, having the IQ of an egg plant didn't help!
The 2007 campaign season begins!
Kathy, beware of what you wish for!
MEDIA ADVISORY: Governor Blanco holds press conference
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
11:30 a.m.
Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco will address White House criticism and further discuss Michael Brown's revelations.
Governor's Mansion
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I have no doubt that is true.
This idiot shouldn't be elected dog catcher. What kind of Governor sits there and play politics and blame others for their failures? I hope Jindal hands her buttocks back to her this year.
You have got to be effing kidding me. Blanco should be recalled for HER inaction during Katrina. Furthermore, what eats at me is that the GOP is going to sit around and not respond to nonsense like this.
Can I tell Blanco where to put her freaking probe?
please don't insult egg plants that way...they have feelings too..:)
http://www.gov.state.la.us/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&articleID=2524
see last paragraph
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