On Fox News Sunday, the Louisiana Senators were both on as guests. Sen. Vetter (R) was via satelite from the Houston area near the affected. Sen. Landrieu was live in the comfy Fox studio. Both Senators were rather harsh on the Federal government, but Landieu was over the top.

This is an exchange between host Chris Wallace and Sen. Landrieu.

Political Teen has the video (HT Bogus Gold)

Wallace:

“Was it incompetent and insulting for Mayor Ray Nagin to order a mandatory evacuation, but then to leave buses — and we have a picture of them — hundreds of buses idle, so that they could be flooded, instead of using them to get people out.”

And the fun begins.

Well, Chris, I was there, as you know, through the whole ordeal with state and local officials, and was right there with Louisiana Democrats and Republicans, city council members, police chiefs, mayors, the governors, and could watch what Haley Barbour was doing and Governor Riley in Alabama.

I am not going to level criticism at the local level. These people did…

WALLACE: But I’d like you to answer, if you could, this one specific question.

LANDRIEU: Well, I will. I will answer it. I am not going to level criticism at local and state officials. Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out of the city in front of a hurricane. And it’s because this administration and administrations before them do not understand the difficulties that mayors — whether they are in Orlando, Miami, or New Orleans — face.

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: In other words, this administration did not believe in mass transit. They won’t even get people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out…

Huh? I couldn’ believe my ears. Grasping at straws?

WALLACE: But Senator, there were hundreds of buses sitting in that parking lot. Can I just ask the question?

WALLACE: Well, look in the picture here. There were hundreds of buses in parking lots. The city and the state.

LANDRIEU: That is underwater. Those…

WALLACE: It wasn’t underwater before the…

LANDRIEU: Those buses were underwater. Those buses…

WALLACE: They weren’t underwater on Saturday; they weren’t underwater on Sunday.

This was the best line of questioning I have seen from a MSM host in a long time.

LANDRIEU: We had two catastrophes. We had a hurricane and then we had a levee break. When the levee broke, not only did New Orleans go underwater, but St. Bernard when underwater and St. Tammany Parish went underwater.

WALLACE: But they weren’t underwater on Sunday.

LANDRIEU: And Plaquemines went underwater. And because the mayor evacuated the city, we had the best evacuation between Haley Barbour and Kathleen Blanco of any evacuation I’ve seen. I’m 50 years old; I’ve never seen one any better.

WALLACE: But there were a hundred thousand people left in the city.

Again, great questioning, he just wouldn’t let her spin her answers. And then she said this.

LANDRIEU: They did a hundred thousand people left in the city because this federal government won’t support cities to evacuate people, whether it’s from earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. And that’s the truth.

And that will come out in the hearing.

It is not the job of the Feds to do that. Each state must be able to take care of themselves. Everyone refuses to let the Feds dictate to them on No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act, but they now expect them to perform door to door evacuations?

And let me say one thing I do agree with David about — and we agree with many things; he and I have worked very closely together this week — everyone will be held accountable. The president himself will be held accountable. This administration; I will be held accountable; Senator Vitter will be held accountable; and all state and local officials.

Now is not the time for finger-pointing. Now is the time to rebuild.

So, I’m asking the White House to stop sending out press releases blaming local and state officials.

Didn’t she say earlier she “wasn’t going to level criticism at the local level”? Yeah she did, so why the change of heart?

WALLACE: But, Senator — I’m sorry. This works better if I get to ask some questions here.

LANDRIEU: I know. That would be fine.

WALLACE: OK, thank you. But you’re the one who’s done the finger-pointing. You were the one who, on the Senate floor, talked about the federal response being incompetent and insulting to the people of Louisiana. You were the one — if I might — and, I want to ask you, also, because you’ve also pointed the finger at the Bush administration for failing to spend enough on flood control.

Here’s what you said this week on the Senate floor. Let’s take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LANDRIEU: They gambled that no one would notice if Louisiana’s critical and vital role in our national economy was threatened. And Washington rolled the dice and Louisiana lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But here is what the Washington Post found in an article this week, Senator. And let’s put that up on the screen if we can: “The Bush administration’s funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton Administration’s for its past five years.”

What? Yes, Bush’s spending in Louisiana was higher than Clinton.

And, Senator, the article went on to say that Louisiana politicians, in too many cases, were involved in pork, rather than in trying to protect the city of New Orleans. And let’s go back to the article. Let’s put up another part of it: “For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps…” — that’s an Army Corps of Engineer — “… cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations.”

So, question, Senator: Is it just the president who gambled and lost or, frankly, did a lot of Louisiana politicians, including you?

Again, Wallace was on top of his game.

LANDRIEU: The president gambled and lost, and I’ll tell you why, if you’ll let me answer this question. Number one, it is true that the president gave slightly more than Bill Clinton. But what is also true is Bill Clinton was running the largest deficit created by the Reagan administration before him and the Bush administration before him.

President Bush was running a surplus. Yet, when he had a surplus, he didn’t invest it in levees and flood protection for people from Miami to Orlando to New Orleans to Biloxi or to Mobile. He had other priorities.

And I have a letter I will submit to Fox Network.

Number two, on the issue…

WALLACE: We’ve only got about 30 seconds left.

LANDRIEU: OK. On the issue of that project: I’ll tell you what that project was, that project of two ports in Louisiana. We have oil in Louisiana. My guys can’t build the fabrications because they’re being built in Korea and Indonesia. So, I thought: If you’re taking our oil, for God’s sakes, give us the jobs.

Huh? Oil? What? Senator, if lives in your state were on the line, as you are currently saying they were, it is your responsibility as their Senator to stand up for them.

So, I put that in for the people of my state, so they could build the oil rigs that take the oil out of the ground. I will make no apologies for it and the Washington Post is wrong.

You’re not making appologies for it, but the WaPo was wrong? My head started to hurt at this point. Landrieu was all over the place in this interview and rarely made a lick of sense. She was trying to link leftist policy goals to the Hurricane. She even tried to blame Reagan for the levy breaks.

WALLACE: Senator Vitter, Senator Landrieu. We want to thank you both. We’re going to have to leave it there. And our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of your state. Thank you so much.

VITTER: Thank you, Chris.

Even though Landrieu was sitting just a few feet from Wallace she didn’t say anything, and Vitter over satelite did. Real class act, I mean partisan hack.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 11th, 2005 at 11:22 pm and is filed under National, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.