McCain: Katrina handled "disgracefully," promises to do better if elected

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Republican presidential candidate John McCain took stock of still-hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans on Thursday and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed at the nearest Air Force base, drawing a sharp contrast to President Bush's handling of the tragedy. McCain called the response to Hurricane Katrina "a perfect storm" of mismanagement by federal, state and local governments. The Arizona senator walked a few blocks of the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, passing tidy rebuilt stucco houses standing next to abandoned structures, their facades still spray-painted with the markings of rescue workers who went door to door nearly three years ago searching for bodies. Government-issued trailers still dot the neighborhood. McCain said his teenage daughter Bridget had been there with a volunteer youth group a few weeks ago to help in the recovery. "Never again, never again, will a disaster of this nature be handled in the disgraceful way it was handled," McCain declared, a pledged he repeated over and over during the day. McCain is campaigning this week in what he calls "forgotten" areas of the country, and he assured residents that their situation was not lost on him.