Breaux spins hay into gold…

Former U.S. Sen. John Breaux, along with other former Louisiana congressional members, engineers, urban planners and economic developers, are banding together to examine Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Breaux said Saturday.

The Hurricane Katrina Commission will focus on how New Orleans should be rebuilt, not whether it should be rebuilt, he said. “Just as the commission formed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center never sought to recommend whether the twin towers should be rebuilt.”

…

But Breaux said despite what could have been done before Katrina hit to protect New Orleans from the massive flood waters that blanketed the city when its levees failed, neither he nor the national commission he is working to form will be part of “the blame game.”

“This is not the time or forum,” he said, to blame local, state or federal officials. “Blame does not save lives, feed families or compensate for loss.”

He praised city officials for working with Gov. Blanco and the National Guard to evacuate the thousands who were evacuated before the storm and continue to be evacuated and said that each day, the situation is improving.

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Breaux rejected the idea that food, water and supplies were slow to reach those stranded at the Superdome and Convention Center because of racial motivations.

“Mayor Ray Nagin is an African American, almost the entire New Orleans City Council is made up of African-Americans. To suggest that these African-American leaders would shortchange their own citizens is a suggestion that is absolutely without merit.” [No fingers pointed here!!]

Breaux said areas surrounding New Orleans with a higher percentage of white were just as slow to receive supplies.

M. O’BRIEN: Let me ask you this, though. Let’s flip this around for a moment. This is kind of turning in, I’m seeing shreds of this on the web and on the blogs of this being the allegation is that Democrats are using this as a political issue. What to you say to that?

BREAUX: I’ve heard the racial implications. I would categorically reject that. Our good Mayor Ray Nagin is African- American and almost all the city council is African-American. The sheriff is African-American. The areas south of New Orleans, Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes are predominantly white and the rescue efforts down there were certainly no faster. If anything, they were slower down there.

M. O’BRIEN: I’m talking also, though, about Democrats using this to make political hay with elections upcoming. In that own way, that’s reprehensible too, isn’t it?

BREAUX: That is totally reprehensible. There will be time to find out what went right and what went wrong. But I think it’s not the time to start talking about political implications. I’m a Democrat. I would heartedly reject that. People are trying as hard as they can to get what is done, being done accomplished right away. Should it have been done sooner? Absolutely, no question about it. But there will be a lot of time for soul searching later on.

While Nagin has previously said he didn’t think the slow response was related to the demographic of the overwhelmingly poor, African-American crowd that needed rescuing, his thinking has evolved.

“Definitely class, and the more I think about it, definitely race played into this,” he said. “How do you treat people that just want to walk across the bridge and get out, and they’re turned away, because you can’t come to a certain parish? How do resources get stacked up outside the city of New Orleans and they don’t make their way in? How do you not bring one piece of ice?

“If it’s race, fine, let’s call a spade a spade, a diamond a diamond. We can never let this happen again. Even if you hate black people and you are in a leadership position, this did not help anybody.”

No demographic is safe, with FEMA eviscerated by privatization and transfer of responsibilities to an untested and unprepared DHS. That’s what it looks to me. nonetheless, it seems obvious that issues of class and race affected the response — why wouldn’t they?