Kendrick Meek: “the gentleman is 110 percent right. The gentleman from Ohio mentioned an issue about being nonpartisan and being, I…”

“the gentleman is 110 percent right. The gentleman from Ohio mentioned an issue about being nonpartisan and being, I would say, third-party validators, I just want to make sure we are clear. On the commission procedural vote here on this House floor that was voted down, for us to have this week, voted down for us to have a 9/11 kind of a commission, I believe that was today; and yesterday, there is an article, and I will give it to the Members just in case they were not watching the Senate, www.sfgate.com, there is an article: ``Senate Kills Bid For Katrina Commission.'' Now, let me tell my colleagues something. This is nothing that we did; this is something that the majority did. If they wanted to get to the bottom of it and to make sure that it never happens again and to make sure that Americans do not have to watch the horror, the horror of people dying and bodies floating, not because of Katrina, but because of lack of response, because the levee broke and because of a lack of administrative duties and governance on all levels; if we do not want that to happen again, why are we not passing a 9/11 kind of commission for the people in the gulf States? They do not want to hear a speech. They do not need to hear, oh, we are going to do this, that, and the other. We are at war right now. We have men and women right now with sand in their teeth and bombs blowing up every day around them, away from their families, some have family in the affected area.…”