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Shock and surprise... the White House played politics with its response to Katrina.

Says who?

Says Brownie

Brown told a group of graduate students Friday that some in the White House had suggested the federal government should take charge in Louisiana because Blanco was a Democrat, while leaving Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, in control in his state.

Brown, speaking at the Metropolitan College of New York, said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the devastating hurricane be federalized — a term Brown explained as placing the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,'" he said, without naming names. "'We can't do it to Haley (Barbour) because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'"

Tip o' the Cap: Kevin Drum

UPDATE: I should have made this clearer when I first published this. Whether you believe Brownie or not is beside the point. If he is telling the truth, it says something wretched about the White House. If he is lying, it says something wretched about the man the White House chose to lead the nation's disaster preparedness agency in a post 9/11 world. Truth or lie, the result is the same.