Political Quotes

“What I really wish to talk about is to give my heartfelt condolences to the people of Japan. We have watched all weekend, my family and I, in horror, watching the scene unfold with the terrible catastrophe that struck Japan on Friday afternoon, following the earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter scale, followed by a terrible tsunami, a wave of water in some places 30 feet high that devastated coastal communities. Some of the pictures are reminiscent of what happened to us on the gulf coast about 5 years ago when a 30-foot wave came ashore right into Gulfport and Biloxi and the catastrophe of manmade proportion, in our case, when the Federal levy system broke and 1,800 people lost their lives. But this situation in Japan is the worst crisis, according to their Prime Minister, since the Second World War. It is going to take all of our best efforts, governments around the world, individuals, corporations, and businesses, to be generous. I hope the people of Louisiana and our cities and communities will be generous because we were so benefited by the warm generosity of the people of Japan and many volunteers who came from all over the country and the world. I hope, as this week of search and rescue comes to a close, there will be time for debris cleanup and rebuilding and mental health counseling--all of the things that go into helping an area of the country survive and grow back.”