"It makes me think of what my friend Rev. Goat just told me: 'Let me say this before it goes any further; New Orleans didn't die of natural causes, she was murdered.'" [Dr. John a/k/a Mac Rebennack]
"The president said he's going to lead the investigation into what went wrong. He needs to look only in the mirror." [Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California]
"Well, I think if you look at what actually happened, I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' Because if you recall, the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse." [Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, "Meet the Press," Sept. 4, 2005]
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." [President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring Hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005, about one week before Brown was replaced]
“I think we’ve seen a lot of the same footage over and over that isn’t necessarily representative of what really happened in both — in a lot of ways,” she said. “Overall, it was a very good response.” [Laura Bush at a school in Mississippi, defending the government’s response to Katrina]
"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." [Former First Lady Barbara Bush, Sept. 5, 2005]
"We've got a lot of rebuilding to do ... The good news is — and it's hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter). [President Bush, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005]
"What didn't go right?'" –President Bush [quoted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), after she urged him to fire FEMA Director Michael Brown]
"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" [House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston]
"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." [Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to lobbyists, from the Wall Street Journal]
"I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That's just not happening." [Bill Lokey, FEMA's New Orleans coordinator, in a press briefing from Baton Rouge, Aug. 30, 2005]
"FEMA is not going to hesitate at all in this storm. We are not going to sit back and make this a bureaucratic process. We are going to move fast, we are going to move quick, and we are going to do whatever it takes to help disaster victims." [FEMA Director Michael Brown, Aug. 28, 2005]
"I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It's terrible. It's tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen." [GOP strategist Jack Burkman, on MSNBC Sept. 7, 2005]
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