As a Senior U.S. Senator of the Republican ruling Senate,
why didn't McCain help the Katrina victims?
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
McCain: Katrina handled "disgracefully," promises to do better if elected
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 24, 2008
Republican presidential candidate John McCain took stock of
still-hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans on Thursday and declared
that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have
immediately landed at the nearest Air Force base, drawing a sharp
contrast to President Bush's handling of the tragedy.
McCain called the response to Hurricane Katrina "a perfect storm" of
mismanagement by federal, state and local governments.
The Arizona senator walked a few blocks of the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward,
passing tidy rebuilt stucco houses standing next to abandoned
structures, their facades still spray-painted with the markings of
rescue workers who went door to door nearly three years ago searching
for bodies. Government-issued trailers still dot the neighborhood.
McCain said his teenage daughter Bridget had been there with a volunteer
youth group a few weeks ago to help in the recovery.
"Never again, never again, will a disaster of this nature be handled in
the disgraceful way it was handled," McCain declared, a pledged he
repeated over and over during the day.
McCain is campaigning this week in what he calls "forgotten" areas of
the country, and he assured residents that their situation was not lost
on him.
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