Austin Scott: “I rise with indeed a heavy heart, as so many in America do. This is an extraordinary time in our country. My heart goes…”

“I rise with indeed a heavy heart, as so many in America do. This is an extraordinary time in our country. My heart goes out to all of those thousands and thousands of people in the gulf area that have lost everything. This is one of our darkest hours, and let us hope some bright light can shine very, very quickly. But in order for that bright light to shine, Mr. Speaker, we must realize the importance of having an investigation quickly. Let me hurry up and say that this investigation is not a blame game, because we already know where the blame is. It is for those individuals who had the responsibility. It has been a failure of leadership at the national level. Here in Congress, a failure of leadership. At the White House, a failure of leadership. The President, a failure of leadership. Our military, a failure of leadership. And our Homeland Security, a failure of leadership. In FEMA, a failure of leadership. And we must examine that now so that we can prepare quickly for the next disaster, because it is coming, or a terrorist attack. There have been mistakes after mistakes after mistakes. That is why we need a thorough investigation of what went wrong in the Federal response to Katrina, and why there was such a delay. Delay after delay after delay. We must not try to skirt around and assume and put blame, unrighteous blame, on the city of New Orleans and their police department and mayor, who were victims. They were suffering from the flood.…”