Katrina Coverage

The AP rounds up Louisiana's plan to get billions of dollars from the feds in "$40B La. Protection Plan Sparks Debate":
A $40 billion plan to hurricane-proof the Louisiana coast has ignited a battle over how best to prevent a repeat of this year's double flooding of New Orleans.
Endorsed by the state's congressional delegation, the proposal […]

That alone should raise suspicions, but, as previously reported that's only part of what they want: Landrieu, Vitter want $250 billion.
WaPo offers "Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions":
Louisiana's congressional delegation has requested $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, about 10 times the annual Corps budget for the entire […]

Maybe the $50 billion amount that their proposal exceeds the already phantasmagoric figure proposed by Bush is intended to be bargained down. Let's split the difference, eh?
Louisiana's Senators, Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R), have proposed legislation to provide about $250 billion in federal aid to help their state rebuild from Hurricane Katrina. The […]

From this Nov. 10, 1996 Baton Rouge Advocate article (pay link):
it was [Marc] Morial's get-out-the-vote teams that won the day for Landrieu, President Clinton and Orleans Parish Leader Harry Connick…
For instance, when the management team got word at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday that a GOP tracking poll showed Jenkins ahead, it was time for an instant […]

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said the reason the flooded schoolbuses weren't used is because of… the Bush administration.
"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 […]

IBD:
Louisiana's senior senator, whose brother is lieutenant governor and whose father was New Orleans' mayor, is blaming President Bush for "the staggering incompetence of the federal government." Come again?
It's understandable that on the Sept. 4 edition of ABC's "This Week," Mary Landrieu said of President Bush, "I might likely have to punch him — literally" […]

FPM has a link-rich rundown of the left's attempts to politicize the disaster:
IT'S OFFICIAL: THE AMERICAN LEFT NOW BELIEVES GEORGE W. BUSH IS GOD. Bellowing leftists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cindy Sheehan have blamed Hurricane Katrina – something insurance companies classify as an act of God – on President Bush’s "killing policies" […]

On Sep. 3, LA Sen. Mary Landrieu accused Bush of creating a potemkin repair site. She appears to have been wrong. First, here's her claim:
…But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant […]