Thursday, April 24, 2008
"Rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever..."
Let me get this Str8. Presidential candidate John McCain toured New Orleans' lower 9th ward with Gov. Jindal, despite
telling the press that we should have a conversation about possibly tearing it down? Really?
[McCain] told reporters he was not sure if he would rebuild the lower 9th ward as president.
"That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do-- rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is," he said.
Alan at
ThinkNola responds thusly:
You mean we’ve not had enough conversations already? The McCain administration is going to hit the ground talking? At least we now know what to expect. More canned civic engagement while the city moulders.
Basically, he doesn’t know what to do. The Lower 9th Ward will be rebuilt, because it is some of the highest, driest land in the city. The levee walls failed in such a way as to flood the Lower 9th Ward, but had the levees failed on the other side, the Faubourg Marigny would have got it just as bad. People don’t understand that the Lower 9th Ward is not low ground. It is high ground and prime real estate.
Well said.
To his credit, McCain addressed Category 5 protection for New Orleans,
saying "It's time to end the studies and it's time to act."
Yes sir! Well, what specific actions do you propose, Senator?
---
Update: Then again, if the Lord
wills our city's destruction because of the Southern Decadence festival, I'm not sure any man-made protection will be sufficient.
Labels: Jindal, McCain
4 Comments:
I propose we all flood McCain's mail each time his birthday comes 'round with cards featuring a different flooded New Orleans property to remind him what happened on that fateful day. Rebuild, dammit, rebuild, Johnny Boy!!!!!!
I'm not so outraged that he was on the tarmac on August 29th. Should I be? He's a legislator and not an executive. It's more the failure of the Bush administration to respond. Picking on McCain over a cake seems a bit of stretch, but convince me otherwise.
Note Firedoglake's contribution:
Democrats criticized McCain's visit to New Orleans, noting that he'd voted against a spending bill in 2006 that would have provided $28 billion in hurricane relief, and legislation that would have extended unemployment and Medicaid benefits to hurricane victims for several months. The Arizona senator also opposed a commission to study the federal government's response.
"Touring the 9th Ward with reporters can't hide the fact that John McCain voted against billions of dollars in Katrina recovery efforts, emergency healthcare for survivors, unemployment assistance for displaced workers, and even the creation of a commission to find out what went wrong," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement. "People in the Gulf Coast can hardly afford four more years of the failed Bush-McCain agenda."
Brings back the good old days, doesn't it, Oyster?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/09/01/flooding_and_ignorance/
