There have been so many clueless conservatives making outrageous Katrina-related comments, it’s hard to know which is the worst. Was it Dennis Hastert’s claim that a lot of New Orleans should be “bulldozed“? Or maybe Linda Chavez saying that New Orleans’ problem is its population is made up of people “for whom sitting and waiting is a way of life”? Or how about Barbara Bush’s belief that things are working out “very well” for evacuees from New Orleans?
A new entrant is Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.). Now that he’s done talking about destroying Mecca, Tancredo wants to stick it to public officials in Louisiana.
Citing what he said was a “history” of public corruption in Louisiana and the “abysmal failure” of current state officials to respond to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) on Wednesday urged Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to prevent local politicians from controlling any part of the billions of federal disaster relief dollars slated for the state.
“The question is not whether Congress should provide for those in need, but whether state and local officials who have been derelict in their duty should be trusted with that money. Their record during Hurricane Katrina and the long history of public corruption in Louisiana convinces me that they should not,” Tancredo wrote in a letter to Hastert, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and House and Senate appropriators.
As it happens, most of the money Congress is appropriating for Katrina relief is going to FEMA, the Department of Defense, and the Army Corps of Engineers, so it’s not as if state and local officials are poised to get much in the way of federal funds anyway. In fact, it makes Tancredo’s attack on Louisiana’s public officials gratuitous as well as offensive.
Needless to say, Tancredo’s letter didn’t go over well in Louisiana.
“It’s hard to imagine more reckless and irresponsible remarks coming from a public official, particularly from one sitting in an air-conditioned office thousands of miles from a scene of devastation and tragedy,” said Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher, who also bemoaned the fact that she had to take her attention away from relief efforts in her state even to comment on the letter
For what it’s worth, other Republicans wanted nothing to do with Tancredo’s assault. One House GOP leadership aide dismissed Tancredo’s request saying, “Congressman Tancredo speaks for himself right now.”