Long Live The King!

Finally, a congressional Republican has joined the post-Katrina kerfuffle:

Newly appointed House Homeland Security Committee chairman Peter King is blasting the media for slanting its coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster to turn public opinion against President Bush.

Asked why President Clinton wasn't blamed for natural disasters during the 1990s, King told WMET-Washington fill-in host Steve Malzberg: "The advantage the Clinton administration had was it didn't have so many TV reporters who were geared against the president that they would totally slant the news."

King said the Federal Emergency Management Agency's handling of the Katrina crisis hasn't been the unmitigated disaster reporters claim.

"The FEMA of ten years ago certainly did not do any better job under much less comparable circumstances than FEMA did this time," he told Malzberg, who was filling in for nationally syndicated radio host Linda Chavez.

"Of everyone involved, certainly they were the least culpable," the House Homeland chief said. "I think the main fault was the state and city of New Orleans - they did a terrible job."

The New York Republican added: "Our response plans are based on the premise that the local first responders will handle the initial onslaught. We weren't expecting that the local government would do absolutely nothing."

T'woulda been nice if some 'Pubbie, ANY 'Pubbie had mustered the testicular fortitude to boldly declare these truths a couple of weeks ago. But better late than never, I suppose.

The question is, will any other Pachyderm join him? And can he reel in the President, who last night apologized again for failures that were not his?