La. Gov. Criticizes Bush for No Mention of Hurricane Recovery in Speech

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco angrily criticized President George W. Bush on Jan. 24 for leaving out of his State of the Union speech any mention of the hurricanes that devastated Louisiana in 2005 and complained that her state is being shortchanged in federal recovery funding for political reasons.

“I guess the pain of the hurricane is yesterday’s news in Washington,” Blanco said at a news conference called to outline the ways in which her administration says Louisiana has been treated unfairly. It came a day after Bush delivered his nationally televised State of the Union policy speech to a joint session of Congress.

The Democratic governor’s news conference marked a new round of political finger-pointing that began last week when Bush’s former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency accused some in the White House of playing politics in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which hit Aug. 29, 2005.

Mike Brown, during a speech in New York, said he had recommended to Bush that all 90,000 square miles (230,400 square kilometers) along the Gulf Coast affected by Katrina be placed under federal control, but he said some White House officials did not want to federalize Mississippi because a Republican, Haley Barbour, is governor there.