One Year after Katrina: Words that won't be forgotten

"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water."
--Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (9/1/05)

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HALLIBURTON GETS KATRINA CONTRACT
--Headline (9/1/05)

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"Last night, we showed you the full force of a superpower government going to the rescue."
--Chris Matthews on MSNBC (9/1/05)

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"Elimination of the death tax would be a victory for fairness and job creation. Working together, we can help eliminate the burden of the death tax once and for all."
--Mass email from Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman (9/1/05)

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"One of the things that came out of 9/11 in 2001 was an increased focus on getting ourselves ready to deal with all kinds of catastrophes. And while nobody can ever be completely prepared for an event of this horrible magnitude, I'd say we're much better prepared than we've ever been."
--Michael Chertoff (9/1/05)

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"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
--President Bush (9/2/05)

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Out of the rubbles (sic) of [Senator] 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."
--George W. Bush (9/2/05)

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"There's trucks?"
--President Bush (9/2/05)

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"...it was my belief, I'm trying to think of a better word than typical---that minimizes, any hurricane is bad--but we had the standard hurricane coming in here..."
--FEMA director Michael Brown (9/3/05)

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"One other factor which must be considered: Days before Katrina nearly wiped New Orleans off the map, 9,000 Jewish residents of Gaza were driven from their homes with the full support of the United States government. Could this be a playing out of prophesy? (`I will bless that nation that blesses you, and curse the nation that curses you')"
--Rick Scarborough of Vision For America (9/4/05)

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"I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged A Bullet.'"
--Michael Chertoff, who saw no such thing (9/4/05)

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"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 and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."
--Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, on WTAE TV (9/4/05)

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"When Air Force One dipped below the clouds on Tuesday so the president could peer out the window down at the disaster, the image was uncomfortably imperial."
--Newsweek (9/4/05). [The president didn't fly over the area until Wednesday].

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"...but the media has a fascination with the blame game and instead of looking for what can we do to help now there's a lot of why didn't we do something different?"
--George H.W. Bush (9/5/05)

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"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...this is working very well for them."
--Barbara Bush (9/5/05)

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"I dropped a twenty in the bucket."
--Millionaire Republican Governor Jeb Bush, speaking from the broadcast booth on a collection for hurricane relief at the Miami-Florida State game. (9/5/05)

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"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country."
--FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak, after firefighters, realizing they were being used as props for a Bush photo-op, removed their FEMA shirts. (9/5/05. View the photo here.)

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The nine-acre lot includes extensive gardens, ornamental pools and spectacular views of the water behind it. Deer and osprey can be seen.
--From a Washington Post article on Dick Cheney's new estate in St. Michaels, MD, where he was mansion-shopping after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast. (9/5/05)

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"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people."
--President Bush (9/6/05)

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"Americans don't sleep in tents."
--Unnamed FEMA official, responding to the head of the Hurricane Center of Louisiana State University who was trying to urge FEMA to set up tent cities in other states to handle the hundreds of thousands of Katrina survivors. The story was told by Tim Russert on `Imus in the Morning' (9/6/05)

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"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."
--Republican strategist Jack Burkman defending Bush (9/6/05)

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"We really don't have time to play the political game right now."
White House Counselor Dan Bartlett (9/6/05)

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Reporter: Just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?
Scott McClellan: The President.
--White House press briefing (9/6/05)

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"What didn't go right?'"
--President Bush to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (9/6/05)

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"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe!"
--Republican Senator Ted Stevens (9/7/05) Europe is 3.8 million square miles, the U.S. is 3.5 million.

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"Given the abysmal failure of state and local officials in Louisiana to plan adequately for or respond to the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans, and given the long history of public corruption in Louisiana, I hope the House will refrain from directly appropriating any funds . . . to either the state of Louisiana or the city of New Orleans."
--Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado (9/7/05)

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"The view that such events are caused by God is a matter of opinion---faith if you will--and are not capable of proof. Every man must decide for himself whether or not Hurricane Katrina brought the wrath of God down on New Orleans."
--Michael Heath, leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine, suggesting that the hurricane was God's wrath on gays in New Orleans. (9/7/05)

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"[The National Weather Service's warnings were] not sufficient."
--Republican Senator Rick Santorum (9/7/05)

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"I'd rather have them here dead than alive. And at least they're not robbing you and you have to worry about feeding them."
--St. Gabriel, LA, resident Theresa Roy indicating her preference for morgues over shelters (9/7/05)

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"And I also want to encourage anybody who is affected by Hurricane K'...K'...Corrina..."
--Laura Bush (9/8/05)

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"...it's a phenomenal accomplishment by everybody involved. It's unbelievable.
--Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas (9/8/05)

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"Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University"
Description on FEMA director Michael Brown's resume, which turned out to be false---he was only a student there. (9/9/05)

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"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
Republican Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana (9/9/05)

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"The American people ... have made it impossible for any politician to make any responsible energy policy over the past 30 years."
--Charles Krauthammer, claiming in a Washington Post editorial that the American people are partly to blame for the botched response to Katrina (9/9/05)

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"That could be good news...for some people. You never know how the left is gonna react to a lower death toll..."
--Rush Limbaugh, after suggesting that rescuers weren't pulling as many bodies as expected from homes in New Orleans. (9/9/05)

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"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."
--FEMA head Michael Brown, after he was relieved of his duties related to Katrina disaster management (9/9/05)

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"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun? You are becoming famous all over this country and even the world!"
--Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, to three boys sitting on cots in the Astrodome (9/9/05)

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AMERICAN RED CROSS NUMBERS TO CALL TO REGISTER: 1-800-438-4637 (1-800 GET HELP)
--Phone number posted online by Kentucky Governor Ernie's Fletcher's office for Hurricane relief.

"Want to gab with the sluttiest girls your nasty imagination can dream up? Mmmm...we can be whatever you want us to be, baby. After all, it is your fantasy..."
--What people heard when they called the above number, which turned out to be a dial-a-porn service (9/9/05)

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"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin."
--Repent America Director Michael Marcavage (8/31/05)

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"The governor does not agree with that. But far be it for the governor to try to divine the will of the Almighty."
--Robert Black, spokesman for Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry. During two private religious events, the governor refused to object to statements made by ministers that hurricane Katrina might have been God's punishment on gays. (9/8/05)

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"He did not develop the way we wanted. He was average. Maybe that's the best way to put it. ... He would have been better suited to be a small city or county lawyer."
Stephen Jones, who once hired (now-ex) FEMA director Michael Brown into his law firm. (9/10/05)

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"...you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year. ... But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."
Conservative radio talk show host Glenn Beck (9/9/05)

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Question: Have you accepted the resignation of Michael Brown or have you heard about it?
President Bush: "No, I have not talked to Michael Brown or Mike Chertoff - that's who I talk to. As you know, I've been working."
--3:39 pm

"I can do more than one thing at one time. By the time I'm finished president [sic], I hope you will realize that the government can do more than one thing at one time, and individuals in the government can."
--3:42 pm

News conference at which Bush had to admit he didn't know that his director of FEMA, Michael Brown, had resigned (9/12/05)

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"I came back four days early."
--Vice President Cheney, when asked by a reporter why he didn't return from vacation until three days after the Hurricane struck the Gulf Coast (9/11/05)

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To reach $62 billion in savings, Cato Institute analysts Chris Edwards and Stephen Slivinski have proposed...slashing energy research and subsidies just as Congress is gearing up to increase them in the face of soaring gasoline prices, cutting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' budget by $4.6 billion after its levees failed to protect New Orleans, and eliminating $4.2 billion in homeland security grants while lawmakers are debating the nation's lack of preparedness.
--Closing paragraph of a Washington Post article on the cost of paying for hurricane cleanup and rebuilding. The Cato Institute is a right-wing think tank.
(9/15/05)

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Pick as Acting FEMA Leader Has Disaster Relief Experience
--Headline in the New York Times. Featured on Air America's The Al Franken Show as a "Headline that shouldn't be necessary"
(9/13/05)

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"Yard apes..."
Term used by Greenville Technical College official Renee Holcombe to describe hurricane evacuees. Holcombe was fired.
(9/14/05)

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44 to 52

--Senate vote to establish an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. All the "Yes" votes were Democrats. All the "No" votes were Republicans. (9/15/05)

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"There was rejoicing...when the power came back on for blocks on end. ... The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed [after delivering his televised speech to the nation], the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions."
--NBC News's Brian Williams's, from his Nightly News blog, after Bush delivered a televised speech from Jackson Square in New Orleans (9/16/05)

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"The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government..."
--Karl Rove, off the record (9/17/05)

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"I just wish Katrina had only hit the United Nations building, nothing else, just had flooded them out. And I wouldn't have rescued them."
--Bill O'Reilly (9/14/05)

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"My earmarks are pretty important to that region."
--Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, saying he wouldn't give up any pork earmarked for his district in order to help cleanup efforts in hurricane-stricken areas
9/21/05)

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"Kiss my ear! That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!"
Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska, when asked if he'd return $223 million earmarked for the "bridge to nowhere."
(9/19/05)