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Sen. Landrieu Threatens to 'Punch' President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina
Senator Mary Landrieu, the Democrat of Louisiana (whose father was a mayor of New Orleans), appears to have finally found her voice after offering only cautious criticism of the federal relief effort in the hurriance catastrophe earlier in the week. Today she promised to literally "punch" anyone, "including the president," who contnued to question the local response to the tragedy, considering the gross federal misconduct.
Appearing on ABC's "The Week" TV program this morning, Senator Landrieu still appeared to be smarting from President Bush's comments, during his national radio address, that state and local bore a fair share of blame for the slow response. On a copter tour of the area, Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.
"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me," she said on the ABC program. "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. "The President could have funded it," she said. "He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane."
She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.
"Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered," Landrieu said. "Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?"
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054594
The interview with Landrieu was taped yesterday, mostly on board a helicopter touring the carnage in and around New Orleans. Some of the footage was simply stunning: houses completely leveled next to houses that seemed to weather the hurricane with no problem on one island near New Orleans. "I don't want to underestimate the horror of the damage, but you cannot understand the dimensions (of it)." Saint Bernard Parish looked to have been leveled. The helicopter flew over partially submerged train tracks as Landrieu said, "Doesn't anyone hear us? We're not asking for charity... We have roads that are only a few feet above water and unless something happens (because so much freight and oil goes through the New Orleans area), the whole country is going to suffer!" Stephanopoulos and Landrieu flew over a partially submerged FedEx shipping facility that serves Louisiana and Mississippi. The helicopter took a second pass over Saint Bernard Parish; every house was partially submerged. "When the police officers finally get access to the doors and open these houses, I have no idea what they're going to find."
The helicopter then took a pass over downtown New Orleans, showing enormous damage to the facades of high-rise buildings, and then near a prison. "The nation is criticizing us saying, why are you evacuating your prisoners? We had no choice! It was a high priority. " Landrieu rightly pointed out that letting them loose would have created terror and chaos in New Orleans. The frustration in Landrieu's voice rose noticeably: "I dare any sheriff in America to be able to execute that - and our sheriffs did - and if one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the President of the United States, he will be hearing from me. One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely punch him - literally!"
The helicopter then passed over the break in the levy. "There is ONE CRANE for the whole breach? Is that pitiful? Now, the president came here yesterday for a photo op! He came here for a photo op. He got his photo op - but we're never going to get this fixed if he does not send us help now! Now, George!... The president could have funded (levy reinforcement in previous years). He cut it out of the budget! Pitiful!"
At that point, Senator Landrieu began to cry as she spoke. We hope George gets an eyeful of this segment of This Week.
On the ground, Landrieu made it clear that it is not about only Louisiana or Mississippi - it is about the entire region. Valuable assets (and yes, that includes oil refinery and transportation) have to be reclaimed and restored. "Why the president did not send forces earlier" is the big question - and, she added, is inexcusable. "When I saw the president yesterday I looked him directly in the eye. I said, Mr. President, we need all the assets you have, more military assets, every resource the federal government can give us. We need it now, we needed it days ago, and we've got to have someone in charge that reports directly to you that takes responsibility for this." Landrieu wants to see a cabinet level appointee to take responsibility for recovery and rebuilding of the Gulf region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "We supply the seafood, we supply the oil, we supply the goods coming to our ports [and the region is] torn to pieces. Will the president please stop taking photo ops and please come see what I'm trying to show him?"
Mary, Mary, Mary! This President is only about public relations and photo ops! But stop and consider this: a few weeks ago, such a segment on a Sunday morning news show - a segment that casts the president and the entire executive branch as PR-obsessed politicians who have totally failed to protect citizens on their own soil without the least challenge from the designated journalist conducting the segment - would be unimaginable. In the wake of this disaster, there seems to have been a seismic shift in the stance of the press. All week, cable news reporters have been reporting the unconscionable situation in and outside of New Orleans, and going ballistic on authorities at all levels. Anderson Cooper, Shepard Smith, Geraldo Rivera and others have been witness to the plight of people who received no food, no water, no aid, no hope. Some of those people died.
Mark these words: the press is not going to buy the excuses which are sure to continue from FEMA, the Pentagon and other federal-level departments and agencies. Heads will have to roll.
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20050904punditpap.html
"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me," she said on the ABC program. "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. "The President could have funded it," she said. "He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane."
She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.
"Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered," Landrieu said. "Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?"
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054594
The interview with Landrieu was taped yesterday, mostly on board a helicopter touring the carnage in and around New Orleans. Some of the footage was simply stunning: houses completely leveled next to houses that seemed to weather the hurricane with no problem on one island near New Orleans. "I don't want to underestimate the horror of the damage, but you cannot understand the dimensions (of it)." Saint Bernard Parish looked to have been leveled. The helicopter flew over partially submerged train tracks as Landrieu said, "Doesn't anyone hear us? We're not asking for charity... We have roads that are only a few feet above water and unless something happens (because so much freight and oil goes through the New Orleans area), the whole country is going to suffer!" Stephanopoulos and Landrieu flew over a partially submerged FedEx shipping facility that serves Louisiana and Mississippi. The helicopter took a second pass over Saint Bernard Parish; every house was partially submerged. "When the police officers finally get access to the doors and open these houses, I have no idea what they're going to find."
The helicopter then took a pass over downtown New Orleans, showing enormous damage to the facades of high-rise buildings, and then near a prison. "The nation is criticizing us saying, why are you evacuating your prisoners? We had no choice! It was a high priority. " Landrieu rightly pointed out that letting them loose would have created terror and chaos in New Orleans. The frustration in Landrieu's voice rose noticeably: "I dare any sheriff in America to be able to execute that - and our sheriffs did - and if one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the President of the United States, he will be hearing from me. One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely punch him - literally!"
The helicopter then passed over the break in the levy. "There is ONE CRANE for the whole breach? Is that pitiful? Now, the president came here yesterday for a photo op! He came here for a photo op. He got his photo op - but we're never going to get this fixed if he does not send us help now! Now, George!... The president could have funded (levy reinforcement in previous years). He cut it out of the budget! Pitiful!"
At that point, Senator Landrieu began to cry as she spoke. We hope George gets an eyeful of this segment of This Week.
On the ground, Landrieu made it clear that it is not about only Louisiana or Mississippi - it is about the entire region. Valuable assets (and yes, that includes oil refinery and transportation) have to be reclaimed and restored. "Why the president did not send forces earlier" is the big question - and, she added, is inexcusable. "When I saw the president yesterday I looked him directly in the eye. I said, Mr. President, we need all the assets you have, more military assets, every resource the federal government can give us. We need it now, we needed it days ago, and we've got to have someone in charge that reports directly to you that takes responsibility for this." Landrieu wants to see a cabinet level appointee to take responsibility for recovery and rebuilding of the Gulf region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "We supply the seafood, we supply the oil, we supply the goods coming to our ports [and the region is] torn to pieces. Will the president please stop taking photo ops and please come see what I'm trying to show him?"
Mary, Mary, Mary! This President is only about public relations and photo ops! But stop and consider this: a few weeks ago, such a segment on a Sunday morning news show - a segment that casts the president and the entire executive branch as PR-obsessed politicians who have totally failed to protect citizens on their own soil without the least challenge from the designated journalist conducting the segment - would be unimaginable. In the wake of this disaster, there seems to have been a seismic shift in the stance of the press. All week, cable news reporters have been reporting the unconscionable situation in and outside of New Orleans, and going ballistic on authorities at all levels. Anderson Cooper, Shepard Smith, Geraldo Rivera and others have been witness to the plight of people who received no food, no water, no aid, no hope. Some of those people died.
Mark these words: the press is not going to buy the excuses which are sure to continue from FEMA, the Pentagon and other federal-level departments and agencies. Heads will have to roll.
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20050904punditpap.html
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Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings. He said the briefings included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall and the potential for tornadoes to accompany the storm as it came ashore.
"We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.
"I keep looking back to see if there was anything else we could have done, and I just don't know what it would be," he said. Chertoff told reporters Saturday that government officials had not expected the damaging combination of a powerful hurricane levee breaches that flooded New Orleans.
Brown, Mayfield said, is a dedicated public servant.
"The question is why he couldn't shake loose the resources that were needed,'' he said.
Brown and Chertoff could not be reached for comment on Sunday afternoon.
In the days before Katrina hit, Mayfield said, his staff also briefed FEMA, which under the Department of Homeland Security, at FEMA's headquarters in Washington, D.C., its Region 6 office in Dallas and the Region 4 office in Atlanta about the potential effects of the storm.
He said all of those briefings were logged in the hurricane center's records. And Mayfield said his staff also participated in the five-day "Hurricane Pam" exercise sponsored by FEMA and the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in July 2004 that assumed a similar storm would hit the city.
FEMA's own July 23, 2004, news release announcing the end of that exercise summed up the assumptions they used, which were eerily close to what Katrina delivered:
"Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
"The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana."
That plan assumed such a hurricane would result in the opening of 1,000 evacuee shelters that would have to be staffed for 100 days, and a search and rescue operation using 800 people. The storm would create 30 million tons of debris, including 237,000 cubic yards of household hazardous waste.
It depends on the context but if you said what she said chances are you wouldnt even get investigated by the Sceret Service. If you said you would shoot him (even if it was obviously a hyperbolic statement) you would get investigated but threatening to punch isnt a death threat.
Even if what Landrieu said was illegal she would have little to fear since any prosecution would expose exactly what she wants to expose; the failure of the federal government to respond, the Bush / Rove regime's valuing of politics over people and hampering rescue efforts by staging photo ops with fake aid in the background, and the blaming local officails while FEMA was actively getting in the way of local rescuers...
She is hardly the most partisan of Democrats and was previously effusive with her praise for Bush. I have appended her statement below. If anyone has a picture or more information, please add it here. Perhaps also check out Landrieu tomorrow on 60 Minutes.
Sep 03, 2005 -- 08:11:03 PM EST
"Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.
“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims – far more efficiently than buses – FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.
“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.
“Mr. President, I’m imploring you once again to get a cabinet-level official stood up as soon as possible to get this entire operation moving forward regionwide with all the resources – military and otherwise – necessary to relieve the unmitigated suffering and economic damage that is unfolding.”
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/3/20113/82903