Lafayette Democrats Blog

I've been meaning to look around for more quality political sites on the progressive side of the aisle. Technorati, which lists several thousands of political blogs, doesn't catch everything and I've been looking around to see what else I can find. A good active site that I've found is Lafayette Democrats. The main blogger is Anthony Fazzio but they have multiple bloggers and therefore a range of opinions. Here's a longish excerpt from a recent post by Mike Stagg (I usually go for shorter excerpts so I hope Lafayette Democrats don't mind) who reminds the Democratic National Committee of Louisiana's early Democratic successes against George W. Bush and then, of course, the hurricanes:

Welcome to Louisiana, Democratic National Committee! Thank you for choosing Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular as the site for one of your 2006 meetings.

We are grateful for the attention.

But, don't think for a minute that just showing up and contributing some bucks to our sales tax coffers in any way approaches settling the debt we are owed by you, the party, and the nation as the place where the resistance to Bush/Cheney emerged, the implosion began and then tipped to the point of creating an imperiled presidency.

(snip)

But, there's one more matter on the why we're owed: the storms of 2005.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped final tatters of competence from the facade of the Bush administration. People around the world were stunned by the images of Americans standing on the roofs of their houses pleading for food and rescue; shocked by the scenes of people dying on the street in front of the New Orleans Convention Center while the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security denied knowing there were any people gather there at all; dumfounded by the incompetence of Bush-appointed head of FEMA Michael Brown and how his scapegoating sought to shield the Bush administration’s record of cronyism.

Two weeks later, Hurricane Rita devastated southwest Louisiana and east Texas, but the horror of the impact of that storm paled in the wake of the federal failures after Katrina. The worst kept secret of 2005 and 2006 is that the federal response to Hurricane Rita has been every bit as incompetent and ineffective as it was for Katrina.

One result of more than 1,000 Louisianans being killed by the storms and their floods, tens of thousands having been displaced from their homes, hundred of thousands forced to evacuate the communities which they'd always called home, has been that the Bush administration has lost credibility with all but the most diehard Republican loyalists.

It was too high a price for us to pay, but Louisiana's misfortune has extracted a political price from Bush and Republicans that will haunt them this year and for decades to come.

While his Iraq adventure/war has seriously damaged his presidency, it was the failure of his administration to protect and shelter Americans in their homes, in their cities in the wake of natural disaster that finally undid George W. Bush. That happened here. It happened in our state, in our cities, to our people. It happened to us.

While they cover a wide range of issues, a quick scan of Lafayette Democrats in the monthly sections also shows that they have written a number of posts concerning the aftermath of Katrina and Rita (and how many times during the Bush presidency has the word 'aftermath' been used for administration bungling?). As a Californian, the treatment of the residents of the Gulf states troubles me deeply. If such bungling and neglect can happen to Louisiana, it can happen to earthquake-prone California. Who will the plains states turn to if there are severe droughts? Who will the states in the Mississippi valley turn to if there is flooding? Who will New York turn to if there are more terrorist attacks? We're all in this together. If the Democrats have a theme this year, it should be that it's time again for all Americans to look out for one another.