Poll: Republicans Give Higher Priority to Iraq than Gulf Coast!

Will someone please call Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and tell him to look no further for the reason for the Federal government's slow response to Katrina (and to Rita) than his own party?

Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi and former chairman of that party, has raged against the slow response of the Feds to the needs of communities in the wake of Katrina. Our Governor Blanco has done the same thing, but that all gets lost in the extreme partisanship of our nation's capitol because she's a Democrat.

The reason for the slow federal response is revealed in a Washington Post story published on the day after Christmas. The real reason is that Republicans don't want the job done!

It turns out that a plurality of Republicans believe that the nation should focus on Iraq rather than on rebuilding the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast of their own country! The margin is 46-37 percent.

The good news is that the country as a whole favors rebuilding the Gulf Coast by a 58-28 margin. Which means that there are large majorities of Democrats and Independents who want the President to make good on his promises to the coast. It also means that the Republican Party is badly out of step with the rest of the country.

The bad news is that Washington is run by Republican majorities in the House and Senate and a White House that doesn't know much else BUT playing to its base.

So, getting our coastal communities the aid they need, that they were promised, and that they deserve will be harder work than it by any right ought to be. But, isn't that the story of the Bush administration: it's always WAY too hard to get them to do the right thing and, all too often, not possible to do so!