GOP To New Orleans: Drop Dead

In today's Washington Post, in a story on the future of New Orleans, the GOP's decision to let the city die was on display, though you had to look for it.

It came in the form of the following:

"'I think the country has moved beyond Katrina at this point,' said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), former House GOP campaign head and now chairman of the House investigation of the response."

And that is really all you need to know.

The article indicated that while polls show a clear majority of Democrats and Independents think it more important to rebuild New Orleans before rebuilding Iraq, self-identified Republicans want Iraq to come first by a 46 to 37 percent majority.

These are the people that allegedly have the nation's moral values? You have to be joking.

Elsewhere in the article comes this:

"Republicans look at New Orleans and see Galveston, Tex., which in 1900 was the state's largest city and the Gulf's largest port before 8,000 residents were killed by a hurricane, Brinkley said . That city was supplanted by Houston, and Brinkley believes Republicans consider it less costly to remake New Orleans as a smaller city based on tourism and its port. It could be surpassed by Baton Rouge, which is nearer Houston's petrochemical industry, set on the Mississippi River and easier to protect from future storms, Brinkley said.

"Democrats see such a move as no less than a GOP takeover, one that would effectively gut Democrat-dominated New Orleans and undermine the party's hold on a governorship and Senate seat south of the Mason-Dixon line."

That is exactly what is at play here. now let's see if the Democrats are going to have the balls to make this an issue in '06.

I am not denying that the Governor and Mayor of New Orleans don't have roles to play. But when one hears how the poor are not being given money to rebuild their homes, while the affluent are, as the New York Times recently reported, what is happening is pretty clear. The Federal Government is essentially telling the city of New Orleans to drop dead.