The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee toured New Orleans on Monday to survey the damage, examine progress, and try and make things better for the still suffering people of that city. Sen. Barack Obama was highly critical of the Bush administration and so was New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. The administration said things were going pretty well actually. Here though is the killer:
The hearing is one of the first that the Homeland Security Committee has scheduled since the Senate passed to Democratic control. No Republican members attended.
No Republican members (three Democrats attended), none -- unbelievable in its utter predictability. And yet it still boggles my mind. How, even from a political perspective, can not one of the Republicans attend, let alone from a moral perspective? If it was once stereotypically true that Democrats were hostile to faith and Republicans hostile to the poor. Democrats, however, have been trying to reach across the faith divide. Republicans? Nothing. Here is the list of Republican committee members who didn't attend -- a list of shame:
Susan M. Collins Ranking Member (R-ME)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)
George V. Voinovich (R-OH)
Norm Coleman (R-MN)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John E. Sununu (R-NH)
Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)
John W. Warner (R-VA)