Bush: He Came He Saw He Continues to Ignore

Landrieu:

"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,"
Landrieu said. "Twenty-four 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.

Landrieu said that FEMA has inexplicably failed to take advantage of offers of help.

"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," Landrieu said. "Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

Landrieu said that her "greatest disappointment" is the lack of progress fixing 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," Landrieu said.

Starting to get the feeling that we're already reaching the "Mission Accomplished" phase of the federal photo op reconstruction effort.