Tim Walz: “I think the greatness that is this country is that when in times of tragedy and times of need, we can put many, many…”

“I think the greatness that is this country is that when in times of tragedy and times of need, we can put many, many things aside and come together. As Mr. Kind pointed out so clearly, to have Director Paulison from FEMA on the ground within a matter of about 72 hours of this tragedy and Secretary Chertoff from Homeland Security personally be on the ground to assess this, and to have President Bush in Minnesota and guarantee that we would get this declaration and then follow through, I think the American public should feel very, very good about that. We have a lot of work to do, but the word coming out of our district and the word going to our staffs as they are working with people is that in this tragedy, they felt there was a face on a faceless bureaucracy. They felt America was there for them. They felt they could count on this body doing everything they could. For that, I thank everyone in here. I encourage my colleagues to adopt the resolution to show that continued solidarity.”