Bush's speech criticized for hurricane omission

Thursday, January 25, 2007

NEW ORLEANS -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco angrily criticized President Bush on Wednesday for not mentioning 2005's destructive hurricanes in his State of the Union speech, and said Louisiana is being shortchanged in federal recovery funding for political reasons. "I guess the pains of the hurricane are yesterday's news in Washington," Blanco said. "But for us it's still very real, very real, and it's something that we live every single day," the governor said. "But we will continue to fight, and we will continue to come on, and we will effect a recovery." Mayor Ray Nagin echoed Blanco's disappointment at Bush's omission of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, but he cautioned against reopening political rifts that developed after the storm. "We're 18 months into this thing. I'm tired of complaining and bellyaching," the mayor said. "We're going to take whatever nickels we have, whatever pennies we have, whatever dollars we have, and we're going to stretch it, and we're going to make this recovery work."

To continue reading
For more than 115 years, the Southeast Missourian has written the first draft of local history. We have aspired to enrich, entertain, educate and inform. Our core values have remained firm: truth, service, quality, integrity and community. Support our mission.