GOP-"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

[Median Democrat]

I guess if there is one positive about the GOP convention is that the GOP is on its best behavior as Hurricane Guastav approaches NOLA. However, we should never forget how the GOP turned its back on Hurricane Katrina victims even after the devastation became apparent:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090901930.html

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Some lawmakers are still struggling to find the sympathetic but diligent tone that a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina -- and the lagging government response to its victims -- would seem to call for.

The latest elected official to step into the swamp was Rep. Richard H. Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that he was overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

/snip

As for McCain, he was among the most prominent Republicans to ignore the devastation of Katrina. It is nice that he has finally seen the light:

Mother Jones: John McCain's Miserable Record on Hurricane Katrina

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/8059_john_mccains_mi.html

/snip

But McCain's record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain's 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain's office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.

Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina's victims. "We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans," he said. "We're going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country."

That attitude was borne out in McCain's actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief

/snip