MO-Sen: Republicans Assail McCaskill for Comments on Hurricane Katrina

Claire McCaskill has ruffled some feathers today with comments made at a meeting of St. Louis city officials, including Mayor Francis Slay. Said McCaskill:

“George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black.”

Sens. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), the head of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate Majority Leader, have predictably attacked McCaskill for her comments. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has written about the brouhaha here.

Nevertheless, we at the Wash U. College Democrats feel Claire's comments, while a little abrasive, are basically true. President Bush is hardly a racist, but there was clearly callousness and indifference to the suffering of the victims. The Bush-Cheney federal government response (or lack thereof) ignored the plight of those less fortunate both before and after the storm. Katrina illustrated better than anything else the criminal incompetence and uncaring detachment that lies at the heart of this administration.

That is why it is imperative that we take back at least one house of Congress. Undivided Republican rule has to cease. Why not this November?