EDITORIAL: What Mr. Powell doesn't get

[funkybutt]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1138952971181440.xml

When President Bush appointed Donald Powell as the federal government's post-Katrina reconstruction czar, greater New Orleans had reason to hope that the plain-spoken Texas banker would take up our case in Washington. And at least at first, Mr. Powell seemed to grasp the severity of the crisis facing our area.

But even if he did, that understanding has not shaken loose the federal help that our region needs and deserves. Last week, the White House came out against U.S. Rep. Richard Baker's plan for federally backed buyouts of thousands of severely damaged homes. And Mr. Powell defended the White House's position on the Baker bill in an opinion piece in Thursday's Washington Post.

In that column (reprinted on the opposite page), Mr. Powell repeats a number of unfounded, misguided arguments against the bill. He implies that local leaders have so far failed to come up with an adequate recovery plan; that the Baker bill will result in a vast, unaccountable bureaucracy; and that federal involvement in the buyout process will somehow get in the way of private-sector efforts to bring greater New Orleans back.

[ClintonTyree]

1. bush got whacked hard immediately after Katrina..........

so he made as many photo-op trips and empty promises as he could muster, in between vacations, to placate an angry American populace. Now that the heat has died down and Americans' minds are wrapped around different issues (Oprah's Book Club fiasco for example) the photo-ops and promises are just a distant memory for the bush administration. Until the press starts hammering him on his broken promises (like THAT will ever happen) he'll continue to neglect New Orleans.
I imagine after the November elections, when Republicans have been voted in because of a lack of minority voters, then something MIGHT be done, slowly of course, at a glacial speed. It's politically favorable right now for the bush administration to do nothing, as usual.
Sad. This is one fucking sad country we live in right now!