Buddy Story

One reason why the Katrina recovery might be going a little more smoothly in Mississippi than in Louisiana: Gov. Haley Barbour.

Katrina's aftermath offers a lesson in the benefits of having friends.

Specifically, the benefits of having Haley Barbour's friends -- most of whom have never met Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Withinhours of the storm, old friend Sam Adcock, the head lobbyist forEuropean aerospace firm EADS, was sending five helicopters and ahospital airplane for Mississippi officials to use in recovery efforts.Another friend, lobbyist David O'Brien, was donating 100 satellitephones so the state's leaders could communicate while many of theircounterparts in Louisiana were stuck with inoperable cell phones.

Barbouralso received a call from A.D. "Pete" Correll, the CEO of timber giantGeorgia-Pacific and a former lobbying client. Correll offered hisfirm's services to help salvage storm-damaged timber. He also agreed toreopen two Georgia-Pacific facilities in Mississippi, which will employabout 500 workers.

One of the striking images from PresidentBush's first post-Katrina visit to the Gulf Coast was of the presidentgravitating to Barbour. Barbour was RNC chairman when Bush was firstelected governor of Texas, sat on Bush's presidential campaignexploratory committee and has strenuously avoided criticizing the Bushadministration's response to Katrina.
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Asked about a proposal to turn over Mississippi's relief effort to afederal "czar," Barbour says, "We don't need that here," adding thatneither do neighboring Alabama or Florida. "These states are capable ofdoing the right thing."

Louisiana?

"That's not for me to say," he says.

I guess it helps to know people. I guess "capable" means "they have Republican governors". If I were a citizen of Louisiana I would be pretty pissed off after reading this story.

ELABORATED COMMENTS:  Okay, here's the point I was trying to make:

If I'm your average Louisiana citizen who doesn't give a shit either way about national politics, I'm upset that people in other states are getting more help than me solely because the person in charge of their state is of the right political persuasion. That is fucked. The goverment isn't supposed to play favorites. This is what people are talking about when they complain about cronyism. Maybe I'm sounding a little starry-eyed in my conception of how things should work, but it just seems wrong that the horrible reality is accepted as quietly as it is.

But but what really gets me mad is that Barbour is right. Aid will get to Mississippi more efficiently than it will to Louisiana by virtue of the fact that Mississippi is  governed by someone with the right "connections".

Kinda like having the mafia for a federal government.