Heck of a job, Republicans!

(Mario Piperni)

My brother sent me this link from TPM:

A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office.

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame.

Bush was criticized heavily when he did not immediately return to Washington from his vacation in Texas after the storm had reached landfall. The government was also slow to provide relief aid and Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), admitted in a televised interview that he learned that many of the storm's victims at the New Orleans Convention Center were without food and water well after the situation had been reported in the press.

Brown's handling of the response ultimately led to his resignation, but Bush offered an infamous endorsement of the FEMA chief only days before he stepped down.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said.

Yes, more Louisiana Republicans blame Barack Obama for our government's response to Hurricane Katrina - more than three years before he took office - than blame George W. Bush. Incredible, isn't it?

And a whopping 44% can't make up their mind whether Obama or Bush are more to blame!

Now, if this were anywhere else in the country, I'd assume that these Republicans simply didn't have a clue what Hurricane Katrina was. But this is Louisiana! They certainly haven't forgotten Hurricane Katrina down there!

But I guess, if there's a black man to blame for anything, they're going to blame the black man, huh? Is there any other explanation? Other than Republicans being completely insane, I mean?

PS. Here's the poll. Apparently, younger voters (ages 18-45) blame George W. Bush more than Barack Obama by nearly two to one (although a whopping 50% don't know who's more to blame).

But Republicans age 65 and older blame Obama more than Bush - for something that happened more than three years before he became president - by 42% to 24%. That's got to be from the lingering racism of those old Dixiecrats, wouldn't you say?

PPS. Here's another poll from the same time period. But while the first was just Louisiana Republicans, this one polls all Louisiana voters. I think the contrast is interesting. Even in such a red state as this, in a formerly Confederate state in the Deep South, Barack Obama has a 41% approval rating (vs 28% for Republican Governor Bobby Jindal).

Of course, 37% of the state is African-American and/or Hispanic. And I think that everything, pretty much, is about race in Louisiana. If you look further down the poll, you can see huge racial disparities in the response to just about every question.

(One big exception, oddly enough, is in background checks for all gun sales. 85% of African Americans support that, but so do 72% of white Louisiana voters and 72% of "other." So, of course, there's not the slightest chance of actually getting that accomplished, is there?)