1.30.2007
Obama Blasts Bush Administration on Katrina (ChicagoTribune.com)
By Mike Dorning
Tribune national correspondent
Published January 29, 2007, 8:48 PM CST
NEW ORLEANS -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama blasted the Bush administration Monday for the slow pace of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, saying reconstruction no longer seems to be a White House priority.
"There is not a sense of urgency in this administration to get this done," said the senator from Illinois. "You get a sense that will has been lacking in the last several months."
Obama, the Senate's only African-American member, was in New Orleans for a field hearing on Gulf Coast rebuilding conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
In the days after Katrina, the devastation of New Orleans and the botched federal response turned into a dramatic international emblem for charges of incompetence in the administration and of indifference to the plight of poor people, particularly blacks and other racial minorities. The flooding and tardy rescue efforts had the greatest impact on low-income black residents, many of whom did not have personal transportation or financial resources to evacuate easily on their own.
The broken homes and vacant streets of the city's flood-damaged neighborhoods remain a potent political symbol. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards kicked off his campaign in December outside a damaged home in one hard-hit neighborhood.
After Monday's field hearing, the Senate committee took a bus tour of the city's Lower 9th Ward, a low-income black neighborhood where many ruined homes sit empty and bear the painted X-marks used in the chaotic weeks following the hurricane to show which buildings had been searched for survivors.
Testifying to the committee, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said he still doesn't see "the will to really fix" his city and suggested that race was a factor.
"I think it's more class than anything, but there's racial issues associated with it also," said Nagin, who is black.
(More ... Chicago Tribune > Local News)
Tribune national correspondent
Published January 29, 2007, 8:48 PM CST
NEW ORLEANS -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama blasted the Bush administration Monday for the slow pace of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, saying reconstruction no longer seems to be a White House priority.
"There is not a sense of urgency in this administration to get this done," said the senator from Illinois. "You get a sense that will has been lacking in the last several months."
Obama, the Senate's only African-American member, was in New Orleans for a field hearing on Gulf Coast rebuilding conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
In the days after Katrina, the devastation of New Orleans and the botched federal response turned into a dramatic international emblem for charges of incompetence in the administration and of indifference to the plight of poor people, particularly blacks and other racial minorities. The flooding and tardy rescue efforts had the greatest impact on low-income black residents, many of whom did not have personal transportation or financial resources to evacuate easily on their own.
The broken homes and vacant streets of the city's flood-damaged neighborhoods remain a potent political symbol. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards kicked off his campaign in December outside a damaged home in one hard-hit neighborhood.
After Monday's field hearing, the Senate committee took a bus tour of the city's Lower 9th Ward, a low-income black neighborhood where many ruined homes sit empty and bear the painted X-marks used in the chaotic weeks following the hurricane to show which buildings had been searched for survivors.
Testifying to the committee, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said he still doesn't see "the will to really fix" his city and suggested that race was a factor.
"I think it's more class than anything, but there's racial issues associated with it also," said Nagin, who is black.
(More ... Chicago Tribune > Local News)
Labels: Chicago Tribune, Katrina, Obama
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