Did They Really Say That?

By Keith Boykin, in politics
Monday, September 12 2005, 12:05PM

It's been two weeks since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and it's produced 14 days of the most fascinating news coverage since September 11, 2001. The images have been dramatic and profound, but the words that accompanied the images were just as astounding. From George Bush to Michael Brown to Kanye West, we've seen and heard it all. Here's a list of what the key figures said during the past two weeks, and I'm not making this up.

The Commander In Chief

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
—President George Bush

"I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans. I believe the town where I used to come from, Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself — occasionally too much — (laughter) — will be that very same town."
—President George Bush

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
—President George Bush, speaking to FEMA Director Michael Brown

"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."
—President George Bush

The Federal Government

"DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER...WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS."
—National Weather Service warning, the day before the hurricane hit

"Louisiana is a city that is largely under water."
—Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, apparently forgetting that Louisiana is a state, not a city

"The critical thing was to get people out of [New Orleans] before the disaster. Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."
—Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security

"It doesn’t make sense to me [to rebuild]...It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."
—Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
—Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader, when speaking to kids in Astrodome

"I think the death toll may go into the thousands. And unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the evacuation warnings. And I don't make judgments about why people choose not to evacuate. But you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there."
—FEMA Director Michael Brown

"I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot or, you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that."
—FEMA Director Michael Brown

"We learned about (the convention center) factually today that what is existed."
—FEMA Director Michael Brown, to Ted Koppel, on Thursday, Sept. 1

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims."
—FEMA Director Michael Brown

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear."
—National Guard Bureau Chief Lt. Gen. Steven Blum

The Grand Old Party

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them."
—Barbara Bush, First Mom, in the Astrodome

"I think all of those remarks [from critics] were disgusting...President Bush cares about everyone in our country. And I know that. I mean, I'm the person who lives with him. I know what he's like and I know what he thinks and I know how he cares about people."
—First Lady Laura Bush

"I mean, you have people who don’t heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out."
—Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did."
—Richard Baker, U.S. Rep. (R-LA), Baton Rouge

"If I'm Karl [Rove], do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we're living in Rwanda?"
—Black Bush adviser, speaking to the New York Times

"Grab some black people who look like they might be preachers."
—Black Bush adviser, on advice he gave to White House, speaking to the New York Times

"This act of God destroyed a wicked city."
—Michael Marcavage, RepentAmerica.com

"You know it's really sad. We're not hearing anything about Mississippi. We're not hearing anything about Alabama. We're hearing about the victims in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags."
—Chris Beck, Clear Channel radio host

"The only role race plays in this is that the American black population has been the prototype for an entire race of people being, being turned into a group of dependents of the government--trapped there, I'm using that word very loosely are screaming we want help, we want help."
—Conservative radio show host Mark Williams, on CNN

"Mayor Nayger."
—Rush Limbaugh, distorting the surname of Ray Nagin to sound like "nigger"

The Locals

"Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you've got."
—Governor Kathleen Blanco (D-LA), on August 29

"We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame."
—New OrleansTimes-Picayune

"If one person criticizes [the local authorities’ relief efforts] or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me. One more word about it after this show airs, and I…I might likely have to punch him, literally."
—Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

"Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand."
—Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

"We had an incredible crisis here and [the president] flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice ... I have been all around this city and...I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we are outmanned in just about every respect...I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."
—New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Sep. 1, 2005, WWL Radio

"There's dogs running loose in there, there's dead bodies in there, there's stench in there that you couldn't imagine."
—New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, speaking to Oprah Winfrey

"I’m sick of the press conferences. For God’s sake, shut up and send us somebody."
—Jefferson Parish president Aaron F. Broussard

"Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don’t give me the same idiot."
—Jefferson Parish president Aaron F. Broussard

"No one would have checked on a lot of the black people in these parishes while the sun shined. So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No."
—Milton Tutwiler, mayor of Winstonville, Mississippi

The Media

"A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans."
—Associated Press caption for a picture of black male hurricane victim

"Two residents wade through chest deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store."
—AFP caption for a picture of two white hurricane victims

"Almost all of them that we see are so poor, and they are so black."
—Wolf Blitzer, on CNN’s Situation Room

The Critical Media

"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom."
—New York Times editorial, Sep. 1, 2005

"A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free."
—Manchester Union Leader(NH) editorial

"Don’t you guys watch television? Don’t you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today."
—Ted Koppel, to FEMA Director Michael Brown, who claimed he had no knowledge that people were stranded in the N.O. Convention Center

"Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated."
—Anderson Cooper, speaking to Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sep. 1, 2005, CNN

"Are you, or anybody who reports to you, considering resignation?"
—Tim Russert, speaking to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on "Meet The Press"

"The palettes of food and water that have just been dropped at selected landing zones in the downtown area of New Orleans. It's an outrage because all of those elements existed before people died for lack of them: There was water, there was food, and there were choppers to drop both. Why no one was able to combine them in an air drop is a cruel and criminal mystery of this dark chapter in our recent history. The words "failure of imagination" come to mind. The concept of an air drop of supplies was one we apparently introduced to the director of FEMA during a live interview on Nightly News on Thursday evening."
—Brian Williams, NBC News Anchor

"FEMA has been on the ground for four days, going into the fifth day. Why no massive airdrop of food and water? In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they got food dropped two days after the tsunami struck."
—Soledad O'Brien, Sep. 2, 2005, CNN "American Morning"

"The dreadful aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has exposed personal and structural failings in America's government, and eroded respect for the country around the world."
—The Economist magazine (UK)

"As it turned out, the information was wrong. Blanco had declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26, before the hurricane made landfall. That was easily checkable, but it wasn't checked. The source of the statement was a single anonymous Bush administration official. The story did not explain why this official had been granted anonymity to take a potshot at the governor or whether reporters had pressed on this issue. And editors allowed it into the paper that way."
—Washington Post reporter Michael Getler, correcting a previous story in the Post that accused Gov. Blanco of not declaring a state of emergency

The Critics

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself."
—Ben Marble, resident of Gulfport, Mississippi, to the vice president, live on CNN

"First time I've heard it. Must be a friend of John..., er, ah - never mind."
—Dick Cheney, responding to the anonymous man

"Bush puts people in jobs who don't know what they're doing. I think he's picking friends for these jobs. My girlfriend raises Arabians. You know horses, so what? Horses and people are different things."
—Shirley Carignan, a retiree from Weymouth, Mass, speaking to AP

"When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable."
—Former Vice President Al Gore

"As survivors are evacuated, order is restored, the water slowly begins to recede, and we sort through the rubble, we must also begin to come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a deadly role in who survived and who did not."
—Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean

"'Refugee' calls up to mind people that come from different lands and have to be taken care of. These are American citizens."
—Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA)

"To the president of the United States, I simply say that God cannot be pleased with our response."
—Elijah Cummings, U.S. Rep. (D-MD)

"This looks like the hull of a slave ship."
—Rev. Jesse Jackson, after reviewing the packed sidewalk where families had gathered, their belongings in torn trash bags

"I've been a supporter of President Bush, but I just got to come back to the fact that this is a failure of leadership and I'll tell you I'm personally angry....and I don't want a president who is taking six week vacations anywhere when Americans are dying..whether they are dying in Iraq or LA."
—Ret. Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, on MSNBC

The Celebrities

"You know, some people are stealing and they're making a big deal out of it. Oh, they're stealing 20 pair of jeans or they're stealing television sets. Who cares? They're not going to go too far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, some of the people who do that they're so poor they've never touched anything in their lives. Let them touch those things for once. The main thing right now, it's not the people who are stealing. It's the people who are left there and they're watching helicopters flying over their heads and they're praying. How come it's so easy to send planes in another country to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives?"
—Celine Dion, Sep. 3, 2005, CNN's "Larry King Live"

"George Bush doesn't care about black people."
—Kanye West, during live hurricane relief telethon

"Hurricane came through, fucked us up 'round here
Government acting like it's bad luck down here
All I know is that you better bring some trucks 'round here
Wonder why I got my middle finger up 'round here"
—The Legendary K.O., from song "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"

The Comedians

"He’s done a hell of a job, because I’m not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm."
—Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief, on Michael Brown

"On your watch, [Mr. President], we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky...So yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, take a hint."
—Bill Maher, urging President Bush to resign

"George Bush hates midgets."
—Chris Rock, during another live hurricane relief telethon

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