Day: September 17, 2005

Dan Riehl is covering a lot of stuff. Go, read and keep scrolling.

You knew it had to happen, and it has.

Why is it that the Los Angeles times has just figured this out? Local media has been reporting the story for months.

March 31, 2005 (WAFB TV)
Louisiana officials are stumped. Do officials in our Office of Homeland Security owe the federal government more than 30 million dollars? The feds sent the bill Wednesday for money paid out in the form of grants for a federal flood buyout program. Three former Louisiana Homeland Security employees who oversaw the program are currently under federal indictment.

April 1, 2005 (WAFB TV)
Governor Kathleen Blanco says if the state is forced to pay back the federal government more than 30 million dollars, the state’s children and sick will suffer. This week, FEMA officials sent a letter demanding back 30.4 million dollars back in misspent flood buyout money.

Governor Blanco is very concerned about that FEMA demand letter. She says the state simply does not have that kind of money just laying around. Blanco says a 30 million dollar hit to the state budget would be devastating.

“The regretful thing is if we have to come up with 30 million dollars, it takes away from children, it takes away from the sick… you know, very, very important initiatives.”

According to FEMA, the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security which is the overseeing agency misspent the money over a five-year period. The money is for buying out homes that habitually flood.

U.S. Department of Justice
A federal grand jury has returned two separate indictments charging three members of the State Military Department with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation activities throughout Louisiana, United States Attorney Donald W. Washington announced today.

Two of the individuals charged, MICHAEL C. APPE, 51, of Mandeville, Louisiana, and MICHAEL L. BROWN, 61, of St. Francisville, Louisiana, are senior employees of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Both APPE and BROWN are charged with conspiracy to obstruct a federal audit; BROWN is additionally charged with making a false statement.

Donna Brazile, who has worked tirelessly to prevent George W. Bush from being elected in 2000 and 2004, now endorses his plan for gulf region restoration.

“On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush — in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.”

But wait, she gets even more mushy:

“I know, maybe better than anyone, that there are times when it seems that our nation is too divided ever to heal. There are times when we feel so different from each other that we can hardly believe that we are all part of the same family. But we are one nation. We are a family. And this is what we do. When the president asked us to pitch in Thursday night, he wasn’t really asking us to do anything spectacular. He was asking us to be Americans, and to do what Americans always do.”

“Mr. President, I am ready for duty. I am ready to stir those old pots again. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

Did I wake up in a different country? This is the same Donna Brazile who managed Al Gore’s campaign right? The same Donna B. who used to spread love like this?

“Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. They have no love and no joy. They’d rather take pictures with black children than feed them.”

Didn’t she also tell the Washington Post back in 2000 that she joined the Gore campaign to “make sure the election did not fall into the hands of white boys”?

And isn’t she the one who accused Pappy (Bush 41) of sleeping around?

She had called Vice president George Bush, the Republican candidate at the time, racist, and accused him of having had an affair, with no evidence to back it up. She said publicly, in response to a rumor floated by the Democrats, that Bush had once had an affair, which he denied. “Mr. Bush owes it to the American people to fess up,” she stated, adding that “The American people have every right to know if Barbara Bush will share that bed with him in the White House.” She also accused Mr. Bush of using “every little code word and symbol,” and for criticizing Dukakis for supporting a furlough program that enabled Willie Horton, a black convicted killer, to flee to Maryland where he was arrested for taking a couple prisoner and raping the woman.

So, where did the old Donna go? Is this new love for George W. Bush temporary or a sign that Brazile has crossed the aisle? Yeah, I know the answer.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about her family.

Brazile’s words are clearly led by her vulnerable emotions of the moment. New Orleans is her town. Her family was affected by the hurricane. Some of them had to evacuate to Houston. Her 46-year-old sister Sheila was missing and was rescued only after Donna appeared on CNN begging for someone to go find her. She’s had a lot happen to her over the past few weeks.

We’ll relish this moment for sure. But it’ll be short lived. I’m sure the old “pot stirrer” will be back, involved in the next big democratic campaign throwing out quotes more like the ones she’s known for. When things get nasty again, and they will, I hope Donna the “democratic party strategist” looks back to remember this moment when she locked arms (not horns) with a Republican president as an American ready to report for duty.