Hillary Launches Presidential Campaign

WASHINGTON (AFX) -- US Senator Hillary Clinton fuelled the political debate over Hurricane Katrina today, insisting on an independent inquiry into the federal response and sharply rejecting President George W. Bush's bid to lead the probe himself.

'I don't think the government should be investigating itself,' Clinton told CNN as the polemics intensified over last week's storm, which left New Orleans in chaos and thousands feared dead on the US Gulf Coast.

'I don't think either the president or the Congress can conduct the kind of objective, independent investigation that we need,' the New York Democrat and former first lady said on CBS television.

...She wrote Bush a critical letter over the weekend and visited New Orleans evacuees in the Houston, Texas, Astrodome stadium. She held a major news conference yesterday before making the rounds of television stations today.

Senate Republicans have announced investigations into the government's handling of Katrina. Bush, who has acknowledged shortcomings, promised yesterday to lead an inquiry into 'what went wrong.'

But Clinton is pushing for the creation of an independent 'Katrina Commission' along the lines of the panel reluctantly named by Bush that issued a voluminous report on the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

'I think we sort of have lost track of the fact this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country,' Clinton told CNN.

'This is not a game. This has to be a serious inquiry that people have confidence in that will help us understand what did go wrong. The sooner we know that, the better.'

Hillary's letter to the President

This is it.

Hillary is seizing on the devastation left by Katrina in her quest for power.

Quite unseemly.

She has chosen this moment to become publicly very vocal and visible, pouncing on the hurricane tragedy as her opportunity to begin in earnest her 2008 presidential run.

I think she's making a miscalculation.

While the need to understand the breakdowns, those that led to the failed evacuation of New Orleans BEFORE the storm and the chaos that reigned in its aftermath, is key, Hillary's decision to spearhead an effort that would be sure to give the country a politicized, 9/11 Commission-style, useless report reveals her mentality in a crisis.

Her priority is to play politics and organize a political dance rather than focus on the victims.

What's her leadership style?

Me first. Pose. Appoint a commission.

It's been just over a week since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Floodwaters have yet to recede. The city of New Orleans has not been fully evacuated, with many refusing to leave. The dead have not been collected, identified, or buried. Families have not been reunited, with children separated from their parents. Although evacuees are being tenderly cared for in shelters, their needs in the longer term have yet to be considered.

All of this and Hillary issues statements and goes on a media blitz to condemn the President's inquiry as a "game."

It would have been wise for her to position herself at the forefront of efforts in her home state, (by that I mean the state that she is using as a stepping stone to the presidency), to tend to the evacuees. Rather than showing compassion at this early stage in Katrina's aftermath, Hillary is bitching and moaning.

Right now, Americans all over the country are collecting goods and money, offering shelter and jobs, and answering requests to help our neighbors.

This is the task at hand.

One week after the 9/11 attacks, the Senate was not playing the blame game. It took a few months to get to that point. Certainly, in the initial days and weeks after a disaster hits, the country doesn't need this sort of political posturing.

Political games are not a priority in a time of crisis, unless, like Hillary, you're attempting to put personal ambition ahead of the suffering.

Hillary is not coming to the rescue by this grandstanding. She is exploiting the hurricane's victims to achieve her political goals.

The woman definitely has an inside the beltway mindset. All politics, all the time.

Frankly, I'm suprised that Hillary has appointed herself the leader of the blame game brigade so soon after the tragedy.

I thought she was supposed to be smart.