My Collection of Strange Katrina-Related Quotations

It's Saturday. Sermon is done. It's my day off. I'm in the mood to goof off -- so I decided to compile a list of my favorite Katrina-related quotations.

1) "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring Hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005 (Source - actually, I suspect Brown is a nice guy, but he is way out of his league or area of training)

2) "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 (Source)

3) "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's "Connected"

4)"I also want to encourage anybody who was affected by Hurricane Corina to make sure their children are in school." –First Lady Laura Bush, twice referring to a "Hurricane Corina" while speaking to children and parents in South Haven, Mississippi, Sept. 8, 2005 (Source)

5)"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source -- also, someone should have given him a gift subscription of the National Geographic. October 2004 gave a prophetic and accurate account of what happens when a Cat 4 or 5 hits New Orleans)

6)"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, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005 (Source)

7) "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." –FEMA Director Michael Brown, Sept. 1, 2005 (Source)

8) "Louisiana is a city that is largely under water." –Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, news conference, Sept. 3, 2005 (Source -- hmm, if Louisiana is just a city, why do they get two senators?)

9) "We just learned of the convention center – we being the federal government – today." –FEMA Director Michael Brown, to ABC's Ted Koppel, Sept. 1, 2005, to which Koppel responded "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." (Source)

10)"My Cheney, go have sexual intercourse with yourself." OK, actually the speaker used a less polite term. Oddly, Cheney directed such comments to others many times on the floor of the Senate. (Source) At least this man was polite and said "MISTER Cheney." I don't agree that this is a very appropriate way to address the Vice President, but we do live in a free country. What bothers me is what happened next. The man who spoke up turned and calmly left the area. He was a doctor and he went to his former home to spend his free time between hospital shifts to sort through his wrecked home to salvage what he could. When two MPs arrived with M-16s, they arrested the cooperative doctor, handcuffed him, and after detaining him released him with the admission that he had broken no laws. (Source) It bothers me that a doctor who has a newborn child, loses his home, is working in a disaster area, has bad taste speaks his mind in a free country to a leader of the free world -- and he loses his freedom.