For those who were disgusted by Sen. Mary Landrieu's performance on Anderson Cooper this week, perhaps you caught "This Week" and saw that she has finally put aside her brown-nosing of Bush and decided to speak some truth about the Katrina/Bush disaster unfolding.
From the NY Times:
President Bush faced increasingly bitter complaints today from local and state officials in the battered Gulf Coast region as he struggled to exert control over a disaster that almost surely claimed thousands of lives.
Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a Democrat, said today that she was so angry about federal failures and second-guessing that if she heard any more criticism of local efforts, even from the president, she might "punch" him.
UPDATE: The video link is here.
More after the break:
When you see the wholesale destruction of the greatest city in your state, and thousands of your citizens dead from incompetence and inaction by the President, even the most weak-kneed Democrat can find the guts to speak the truth:
Today, Senator Landrieu, a Democrat whose father, Moon Landrieu, was once the mayor of New Orleans, dropped her earlier reserve about criticizing federal failings.
Mr. Bush had said that the enormousness of the crisis had "strained state and local capabilities."
Local authorities took this as a deeply unjustified criticism, and a distraught Ms. Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.
"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me," she said on the ABC program "This Week." "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
She also referred angrily to comments Mr. Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had had there in his younger days.
"Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered," Ms. Landrieu said during a helicopter tour of the area with an ABC interviewer. "Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?"
This is exactly the sort of righteous indignation Democratic leaders should be showing. The President is incompetent and reckless, and he must be held to account. It's not enough that Bush shows himself to be a failure, we must constantly drive this point home.
Hats off to Sen. Landrieu for finally getting it right.