contribute? >> they can google national association of free health care clinics and there's a number of places to donate. www.freeclinics.us. i encourage your listeners to do readings on this. these are phenomenal people. >> ed schultz, thank you for joining us, you're doing great work down there. >> thank you for joining us, lawrence. 2k3w5 2k3w50d. >> thank you, lawrence. good to be with you. >> see more on "the ed show" later tonight, 10:00 p.m. eastern, 7:00 pacific, if you want to donate, go to www.freeclinics.us. you can have the last word online at our word, follow my tweets @lawrence. "the rachel maddow show" is up next, and tonight in rachel's is the ever versatile melissa harris-perry. good evening, melissa. >> good to see you back.

>> hey, thanks for sitting in for me last week, that was great. >> absolutely. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. rachel does have the night off and i'm melissa harris-perry. so what did you do this weekend? if you live in the eastern u.s., chance is your weekend revolved around irene, it did cause enormous damage from north carolina all the way up to canada, at least 37 people were killed by the massive storm, and the high winds knocked down as many trees that around five million americans are without power, but it's what the storm did after it left the atlantic coast and went inland that took many by surprise. the land lock state of vermont home to all of those green mountains got walloped by irene, which was a tropical storm by the time it got there. high winds weren't the problem. rain was the problem. today, vermont is dealing with its worst flooding since 1927, flooding that has killed at least two people, and because of all that rain, the vermont state

capital was almost flooded twice this weekend. first when irene slammed through the town and again when officials were weighing whether to release water from a nearby dam to relieve the pressure. the state of connecticut is also reeling tonight, not a single town in the nutmeg state was spared by the storm. there are power outages throughout the state, nearly half of all residents are in the dark tonight. it's too early to know how much it will cost to clean this up, to mix everything damaged from north carolina to new england, but in new jersey governor christy said his state alone may have suffered tens of billions of dollars in damage. the state of maryland said the federal government will reimburse the state for 75% of what it spends on emergency preparedness in response to irene. and in new york, the governor said the cost of the storm to

the state would be high but offset by federal disaster relief. after all, that's what happens in the wake of a disaster, right? that's why barack obama has been going to fema and meeting with the secretary of homeland security and signing all of those emergency declarations for state after state after state. part of what the government exists to do is to respond to disasters like hurricane irene, to help citizens get back on their feet after a devastating storm, but out on the campaign trail, candidates for president have been suggesting something else. >> i don't know how much god has to do to get the attention of the politicians. we've had an earthquake, we've had a hurricane. he said are you going to start listening to me here, listen to the american people. >> congresswoman bachmann said later she was just joking, nothing funnier than a deadly hurricane. she meant it humorously and added that the national debt poses a threat to relief efforts. another presidential candidate

believes he can leverage big savings really, really easily. congressman ron paul believes since we used to do without fema, we can just do without it again. he cited as an example the hurricane that struck his district in the year 1900 in galveston, texas. quoting him, "we should be like 1900, 1940, 1950, 1960. i live on the gulf coast and we deal with hurricanes all the time." with all due respect, live on the gulf coast, too and what i know is between 6,000 and 12,000 people died in the galveston hurricane. so many bodies, people couldn't bury them all. barrels of free whisky were handed out to dull the horror of the burnings. that seemed to be the extent the government could respond, dull your pain with free liquor. sorry, we can't do more. now, the majority leader of congress right now isn't

suggesting we get rid of fema, instead, eric cantor has been requiring spending cuts be made somewhere else to pay for a disaster, and he's been very consistent about this. ssouri, this spring, the disaster funding to deal with that was taken from the emergency department's budget. sorry developers of alternative energy vehicles, the money has to come from somewhere. which means when fema needed money now, right now, to respond to hurricane irene, it had to take money intended for the joplin recovery and spend it on irene. sorry, tornado-levelled town, rebuilding will have to wait. you are yesterday's disaster. in just over four months, americans will begin voting for who they think america's next president should be. will that be someone who runs a government so small that it is inconsequential a government

that exists as a reflection of god's wrath, or will it be a governing body with the desire and means to help pick up the pieces and rebuild when disaster strikes. joining us now from burlington, vermont, is bernie sanders from vermont, thank you so much for your time tonight. >> my pleasure. >> some of the worst pictures, some that just really had my jaw dropping were taken just down the road from where you are right now, in burlington, waterbury, vermont. can you give us an assessment of what's happening on the ground there in situations like the one you are currently in? >> actually, i was just in waterbury a few hours ago. what we are looking at, melissa, three people are known to be dead and we fear fourth person is lost. hundreds of roads have been closed. our major rail line that carries amtrak is shut down. tens of thousands of people are without electricity. we are seeing severe damage to many businesses and homes

through the the state, mostly in the southern part of the state, so what we're seeing today is the state of vermont experiencing the worst natural disaster that we have experienced since 1927. at end of the day, we're going to be spending to rebuild the damage and go forward from here, it's hard to estimate, but certainly tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions of dollars. >> senator sanders, when we hear something like that, you know, none of us want to politicize this. this is a disaster at its core. it doesn't require a political analysis, per se. but i want to ask you about the role of the government in alleviating that kind of suffering. we may not be able to be solve it, but the fact is as we have conversations about the appropriate role of government, it certainly makes sense for a first-line responder to be local, but is there a role for the federal government to play?

>> of course. of course, there is. in any democratic civilized -- even non-democratic nations, if you are a nation, it means to say that in our case, if there's a hurricane in louisiana, the people of vermont are there for them. if there's a tornado in the midwest, we are there for them. if there's flooding in the east coast, the people of california are there for us. that's the concept of a nation. you can't do everything alone. we work together. when disaster strikes, as one people, we come together to help our neighbors out. >> there is something about disaster that creates a sense of shared vulnerability. i'm here in new orleans, and we certainly, you know, yesterday were spending a lot of time thinking about what was happening to our fellow citizens on the east coast, so to the extent we are all one people, once congress reconvenes, do you anticipate problems getting our

body, the federal government to pass the kind of funding bill necessary to assist with irene? >> well, i surely hope not. you know, in the past as a nation, we have come together. we've got to do it now, and we have got to do it in the future, but as you've indicated in your opening statement, there are some people out there who have a very strange idea of what a nation is about, and they do not believe, i gather, that the federal government should play a role in helping communities rebuild after some terrible disaster has occurred, after people have lost their lives, after businesses have gone under. these are the same people who believe, in some cases, the federal government should not play any role in providing health care to our people or protecting the environment. i think, melissa, this is very much of a fringe concept. i think the overwhelming majority of the american people know that we have got to stand together, that we're going to

grow together, that we're going to survive together, and that if we start splintering, we're not going to succeed in a highly competitive international economy. so yes, there are some voices out there that think, i guess, that the federal government should not respond to a disaster. there are some voices in congress, but i think represent a small minority of the american people. >> senator sanders, our hearts and our thoughts are with the people of vermont tonight, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> so what was president obama up to on vacation last week in martha's vineyard, you know, golfing, light reading, managing two different disaster response efforts, overseeing the end of libya's 40-year dictatorship and attempting to extricate a world power from the worst recession since the 1930s. the usual stuff. the president's latest move on the jobs crisis is next. n't get. so here's five bucks

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oh, oh, oh, oh, did you hear what former vice president dick cheney said about former secretary of state colin powell? colin powell did. stay tuned to see who maintained dignity and who didn't even try. i'm really glad we took this last minute trip! you booked our room right? not yet, thanks for reminding me. wait, what? i have the hotels.com app so we can get a great deal even at the last minute. ah, well played sir. get the app. hotels.com. handle more than 165 billion letters and packages a year. that's about 34 million pounds of mail every day. ever wonder what this costs you as a taxpayer? millions? tens of millions? hundreds of millions?

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storm surge, swol rivers and lakes. there are still towns and cities underwater from the rain, up to a foot of rain in some places. recovery from the almost complete grinding standstill. transportation enfa structure and systems need to get up and running so people and things can get moving again. recovery from hurricane irene will cost billions of dollars, but it will get done. it can be done. we know how to get the power lines back up and the roads cleared. less certain is the other recovery, the big picture recovery, capital "r," capital "e," recovery. i am, of course, speaking of economic recovery and what the heck the government can do about it. the people in charge are these guys, the members of congress and the house and the senate, oh, yes, and this man, president obama. or to be more specific, president obama and his

advisors. one of the most important and impressive advisor positions in the white house is the chairman of the council of economic advisors, that title has a lot of words in it, so you know it's important. until recently, the guy that had that job was the gloriously named austan goolsbee, in his last appearance with jon stewart, goolsbee was living in -- he could barely contain his delight. he was practically living in pleasure of leaving his job. >> he's the outgoing chairman of the council of economic advisors, please welcome austan goolsbee. >> look at you, can we get a shot of his face. you are giddy. you are giddy. >> i will admit to some small enjoyment i am getting out of town. >> you are giddy.

>> once you get to washington, there's only so long that you can go. there are a number of people there whose tray tables are not in the full, upright and locked position. i feel bad the president has to stay there for years to come. >> look at you. you are, i swear to got, you are giddy as a schoolgirl. >> we're the salmon, you know, i'm jumping out of the lake, i'm headed home. >> austan goolsbee has been on "the daily show" four times before this. he's never looked so down right slap happy. it's as though he had the world's most thankless job, except, perhaps, for being president. a job so bad he's leaving the halls of power in washington for an unassuming teaching job in chicago, and he could not be happier about it. look at him. he's thrilled, delighted. this whole chairman of the council of economic advisors thing must be a real slog, and today at the white house, president obama announced his latest victim -- i mean, his latest pick to head up the

economic advisory council, allen -- alan krueger, a labor economist. treasury secretary and professor at princeton where i used to work. come to think of it, i used to work at the university of chicago too. joining us now, ezra klein, columnist for "the washington post" and bloomberg news. nice to see you tonight. >> good evening, melissa. >> you say alan krueger is the obvious pick for the president. what makes him so obvious? >> it is the entire history of how the president picks these economic positions. so the thing about alan krueger, the upside of the pick is alan krueger. he is a loy bore economist. he is a guy that studies the job market and one of the best in the country.

he is known for with economist, a guy who studies the job market and he's good at it, one of the best labor economists in the country. he's breathed a lot of new life in the field when it fell a few years ago, but allen kruger is also a long time clinton and obama administration appointee, he served with geithner, summers, all these guys for a long time, so if you look at the way the obama administration has been picking for these positions, goolsbee following roemer, daly following emmanuel, people they know, they pick from inside the administration. when you look for an economist who's a good economist but knew these guys and served there before, that was alan krueger. the down side is you have another economist who is part of the administration team and thinks like they document if you want this to be a pick that broaden the administration's horizons, you didn't get that. >> it's not someone who's going to broaden horizons, but more than that, the other similarity i see between kruger and president obama, this empirical, hypothesis testing, is this guy too much of a thinker, a professorial type?

is that another area here? >> if you have a political guy in the council of economic advisers position you have made a terrible mistake. that position, and this is the reason it is thankless, the position is there to give good rigorous, empirical advice to the president. you can ask do you want a big thinker, someone who has sweeping interpretations of the macro economy we live in. that is not alan krueger. do you want somebody that is good at thinking how do you design the program to its maximum efficiency, that might be alan krueger. but to get a guy to pass things through congress, there are enough political people in washington already. >> speaking of trying to get things passed through congress, it turns out the republicans in congress have been holding up the president's nominees, and this is, after all, just a nomination. what is going to happen politically on this question. will alan krueger have bipartisan poert or will this be

a night in the senate? >> points will be scored. kruger will get past the senate, traditionally the council of economic advisors chair does not get held up because he doesn't have a lot of power. he advises the president and the senate tends to give the president more leeway on a pick like that. than federal reserve chairman and treasury secretary, someone with independent authority of their own. obviously the nomination process is incredibly broken and the situation is incredibly polarized right now. if i were alan krueger i would not look forward to my hearings. >> sure, and normally things like the debt ceiling are routine. i'm not sure we can take normal as a standard anymore. speaking of the question of whether or not the administration is going in a new direction, president obama will be making a new jobs pitch next week. is there anything about the alan krueger nomination here that makes you think something

specific will happen in terms of the scope or the direction of this pitch? so i don't think kruger is telling us that much about it. we're going to be hearing versions of ideas we've heard before. this administration is not one for picking big symbolic battles on policies they can't win on, they've also been careful on not offer up policies that can pass and get polarized by them bringing up. i'd expect mostly things we have heard before or similar policies to those. >> so, ezra, you and i talked about having a plix and economics 101 class. maybe this sour professor for that. msnbc analyst and columnist for "the washington post" and bloomberg news, thanks for joining me tonight, ezra. >> thank you. republican presidential frontrunner rick perry has doubled down against one of the most popular and successful

social programs in the history of the world. social security and the extreme right wing just don't get along. that story is next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the most legroom per dollar of any car in america. the all-new nissan versa sedan

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let's say, just for argument's sake, that you don't know everything there is to know about rick perry. let's just say you haven't read his new book, "fed up!" from start to finish. let's just say you're a regular, reasonable person and you hear

rick perry, texas governor, and for the moment front runner in the presidential primary say this about social security. >> we need to have a conversation with america just like we're having here today and admit that it is a ponzi scheme for these young people. it is, i mean, the idea that they are working and paying into social security today and they are under the current program that it's going to be there for them is a lie. it is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them. >> if you're not paying really close attention, if you're a casual listener on the campaign trail, sounds like governor perry is saying social security, yes, is a ponzi scheme, a monstrous lie to this generation, and therefore, he seems to be implying we need to fix it, make it solvent so it will be around for these young people. >> it is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them.

>> we can't do that to them. if you're listening to rick perry talk about social security on the campaign trail, you might hear his criticism of the program as indicative of his interest in actually strengthening it. it sounds like he wants to fix social security. in fact, in his book, governor perry argues that certain new deal programs "massively altered the relationship between americans and their government, violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles of federalism and limited government. by far the best example of this is social security." rick perry does not want to save social security for the younger generation. the monstrous lie is not social security, it is more likely the monstrously misleading idea is that rick perry would like to protect america's most important social safety net for the next generation. the truth, rick perry is perfectly happy to have the next

generation go into retirement and old age without a safety net of any kind. in fact he told "newsweek" in an interview, i don't think our founding fathers when they were putting the term welfare in the institution were thinking about a federally-operated program of pensions nor a federally-operated program of health care. so the goal in rick perry's america would be what, to save from the wages so many americans don't have because they don't have jobs, invest those non-existent wages in private accounts on the stock market that crashes every other week? leave it up to the stakes to -- leave it to 0 the states to have entitlements or not. to have a social safety net or not? it is hard to say because rick perry hasn't seemed terribly anxious to discuss his plans for social security on the campaign trail. why? if he says it is in big trouble, it is a lie, a ponzi scheme,

that all of those anxious voters will assume, as he just implied that he wants to fix it. so when rick perry says social security is in trouble, he doesn't mean he wants to fix it. he means he wants to get rid of it. in that case, what does rick perry say he has balanced the budget in texas or produced the strongest economy in the nation or created all of those new jobs? i'm actually interested in this. lou dubose, editor of "the washington spectator." lou, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me, melissa. so crack the code. >> first thing i want to ask you -- exactly. the first rick perryism i want you to decode is the texas budget. rick perry likes to talk about how he, as governor, simply made tough choices, he balanced the budget. now, you have a piece out on this this week dealing with the

$27 billion shortfall in texas, so help me decode this texas budget. what's really going on here? >> well, for one, you know, he's required by the constitution to balance the budget. they can't deficit spend in texas as in most states, because the constitution prohibits it. the budget was balanced -- we faced at the beginning of this legislative session a brutal session that just ended a $27 billion short fall. the interest ing thing about the short fall, it was created by the governors in 2006 when he passed a business margins tax. he appointed a committee, he pushed it through the legislature and the cynical thing is that $27 billion, he knew, or at least was well informed, it that would not -- that there would be a $27 billion hole because his tax was going to under perform. by 2011, it did under perform by

$27 billion. it didn't in 2009 because rick perry took $17 billion in stimulus, a program to, he used it to fill the budget hole. the governor created a structural budget deficit. it will be 10 to $20 billion depending on how the economy performs and he knew he did it. he knew because he told legislators, at least two that i know of. told the lieutenant governor the tax would not deliver. the controller told him, the state controller told him, the tax would be $23 billion short. she missed by $4 billion because she didn't account for the recession, so he went into the session knowing we were short. >> well, indeed, and speaking of citizens, not only did he take stimulus money to fill the budget hole while railing

against the stimulus, as he's talking about america's future what were the government spending things he did cut in this texas budget as he keeps making this claim to have balanced this budget without raising new revenue? >> that is always an easy choice in texas. you go after public education and medicaid. $4.3 billion in public education. 1.4 billion out of categorical spending that is 5.7 billion. and you are next door in a low tax, low services state in louisiana. you see these are expo nennial cuts in states such as ours. we have 12,000 teachers laid off in this session but it will come back in the next session. medicaid is cut and the last four months of medicaid were not funded. so we are $4.8 billion in to the next session for medicaid. it is grim.

>> medicaid, education. >> medicaid, education, lou dubose, editor of "the washington spectator," thanks for helping us crack what that perry code actually is. for those who served in george w. bush admission, here's a phrase sure to strike terror in the stoutest of hearts. dick cheney has written a memoir. e.j. dionne joins us for that next. ♪

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we search, browse, and shop from anywhere. we live in a social world. isn't time we had a social currency to match? membership rewards points from american express. use them for the things you love from amazom.com and more. in your view, we should still be using enhanced interrogation? >> yes. >> should we still be waterboarding terror suspects? >> i would strongly support using it again if we had a high-valued detainee and that was the only way to get him to talk. >> people call it torture, you think it should still be a tool? >> yes. >> rendition? >> yes. >> secret presence? >> yes. >> wiretapping? >> with the right approval. >> you say it is one of the things you are proudest of and you'd do it again in a heart beat. >> it was controversial at the time, it was the right thing to do. >> no apologies? >> no apologies.

>> ladies and gentlemen, the unapologetic 46th vice president of the united states, richard bruce cheney, who's currently promoting his memoir and promising there will be "heads exploding all over washington." why? because his memoir throws a bunch of his fellow bush veterans under the bus. on george tenet, the former director of the cia, the one that promised the intelligence on wmds in iraq was a slam dunk, cheney criticizes him for leave when the going got tough and condoleeza rice's apology after president bush wrongly stated that iraq had tried to buy uranium in his 2003 state of the union address. "rice realized she had made a major mistake by issuing a public apology. she came to my office, sat down in a chair next to my desk and

tearfully admitted i had been right." and on colin powell, cheney said he pushed for his resignation in 2004 and "it was as though he thought the proper way to express his views was by criticizing administration policy to people outside of the government." . colin powell's response -- >> mr. cheney's had a long and distinguished career and i hope in his book that's what he'll focus on, not these cheap shots he's taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability. >> you label them flatly as cheap shots. >> yes, they are cheap shots. several he targeted at me, he takes great credit for my red ig nation in 2004. president bush and i always agreed we would leave at the end of 2004. he said i went out of my way not to present my positions to the president, but to take them outside of the administration. that's nonsense. president knows i told him what

i thought about every issue. >> in some ways, he's no kinder to your successor, condoleeza rice. >> well, he's taken the same shots at con di with an almost condescending tone, she tearfully did this or that and also at george tenet and indicated he didn't always approve of what president bush was deciding. there's nothing wrong with saying you disagree, but it is not necessary to take these kind of baushs and try to pump a book up by saying heads will be exploding. that even on the headline section of the nixon foundation to sell the book. i think it is a bit too far. i think dick overshot the runway with that kind of comment if the that is how he plans to sell his book. >> that it would be colin powell. a veteran of foreign wars a hero of the first gulfer war and undeniable pate with i don't

think who served under democrats and republicans. a man who precisely because of his bipartisan appeal and his commitment to the duty i was chose as the sales person of 0 the iraq war in to the world on behalf of the bush administration. that it would be colin powell to be thrown under the bus by vice president dick cheney. that it would be colin powell to be thrown under the bus by one of those people whose war he helped to sell? it is not just nasty and ugly, it is tacky and also really bad manners. here to talk more about this is e.j. dion, "washington post" columnist, senior fellow at the brookings institution and contributor. i wonder why there is such rancor here from former vice president. why come out attacking members of his own administration? >> i think you do get a picture

of quite a bit of dysfunction inside of the bush administration. i think cheney felt that in the second term the policy was getting away from him. i think you saw a shift in president bush's foreign policy from something like the cheney policy to something like condoleeza rice's policy. and that's why there's certain continuities between the second half of bush and president obama. there were some interesting revelations in the book. i thought even if colin powell is right in saying that heads are exploding in washington. i thought that was the toughest shot. because the way you sell a book is to get people to believe that heads are exploding. the account of the last meeting before iraq is striking. president bush in his account of the meeting said it ended with his deciding and he said let's go. cheney says that bush threw everybody out of the room and

said, dick, what do 0 you think we ought to do? i always thought there was something odd about these heroic accounts of president bush's decision making. this is one of the toughest critiques ever, even though he said he didn't mean it that way. >> look, i do think there is -- clearly vice president cheney is trying to position himself as the center of the story. i wonder why do it at the expense of the party? we have been wringing our hands of how we can't get bipartisanship in the u.s. is there something this cheney memoir should be telling us about the republican party itself coming apart at the seams? >> i think it tells you something about why all of these republican presidential candidates are not embracing the bush record. rick perry has gone out of his way to say he is a different kind of texan. he is texas a&m and not yale.

and mitt romney who maybe the most natural successor to bush is not embracing him either. as i was hearing dick cheney thought, i thought his theme song is "no i regret nothing" but i don't think he would sing it in french. >> i don't want to hear him sing it. e.j., thank you for joining me tonight. >> good to be with you. i'm not the only one broadcasting from new orleans tonight. ed shultz is also here and he will have the latest on his tremendous efforts to support free health clinics and i'm happy to say one of ed's guests later on tonight will be me, right after the show. and then a look at what rachel has been work on so hard the last few months. we'll be right back. or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business --

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since the death of osama bin laden back in may, the cia has been busy, busy combing through bin laden's files that navy s.e.a.l.s scooped up on the way out looking for names, numbers, locations, any clues to lead them to al qaeda leadership. this weekend we learned those efforts paid off in a big way.

this man, al rahman, described as al qaeda's top operational planner and one of the only remaining figures in al qaeda's leadership who could serve as both an ideological guide and the operational leader. say he was killed last week by a cia drone strike in pakistani tribal region dealing al qaeda another major blow. nearly ten years since 9/11, u.s. officials are now sounding cautiously optimistic that a strategic defeat of al qaeda could be near. for most of the past year rachel has been working with nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel about not 9/11 itself, but the decade after, how 9/11 has changed the country, what we've done and

what we've done different now because of it. here now is a short clip from the piece, take a look. >> the combination of cia units, u.s. special forces, afghan militias, and american air strikes is devastating. the taliban start to run and abandon al qaeda. >> you know, all the taliban they leave us and they say we are sorry. >> in november 2001, kabul falls just two months after 9/11. girls are free to go to school. the repressive regime that hosted bin laden is defeated. a month later, even kandahar, the taliban's hometown, is overthrown. >> when kandahar fell, that was the last urban stronghold of the taliban and al qaeda, less than 90 days after nooimpb 9/11 there

were only 410 americans on the ground in afghanistan, about 110 cia and approximately 300 special forces. >> 400 americans. >> right. >> on the ground and they toppled the government of the taliban? >> 400 americans that were in partnership with our afghan allies. and that really the key. >> the cost to america to drive out the taliban? less than a billion dollars and one u.s. cia officer killed. >> relatively speaking, it was a very cheap and low-risk victory. what happened after that? >> well, i believe that we, as a nation and as a global community, failed to secure that victory. >> the quick victory in afghanistan wasn't secured in large part because of pakistan and the largest border.

al qaeda crossed over and built a new sanction ware next to afghanistan. and then what is called a greater strategic mistake, the united states found a new mission, a new war in iraq. al qaeda felt it was give igive a second chance. >> we never thought the americans would do that and get in that war. >> was iraq a gift to al qaeda? >> yeah, of course. yeah. it was a gift. >> a gift because iraq would inspire a new generation of al qaeda the fighters. >> that's part of a two-part series that airs starting this thursday night, september 1st at 9:00 p.m. "day of destruction, decade of war." we hope you will watch. we'll be right back.

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i'm hosting tonight's show from new orleans, but being here tonight wasn't really the plan. i'm here because hurricane irene made it impossible to fly to new york like i was supposed to. but unfortunate predicament is strangely apropos. while hurricane irene has shut down the east coast, tonight is the sixth anniversary hoff hurricane katrina devastating this city of where i live and love. sixth anniversariries are not that noticeable. as we are preparing to mark ten years since the attacks of september 11th, the sixth anniversary of the levee breach is less likely to make news. while on this anniversary, look ahead to september 11th allow mess to ponder the lessons we americans have learned and the ones we have not from our two with biggest calamities in recent history.

hurricane katrina, like september 11th, 2001, was a rare moment when we, as americans, suffered along with our fellow citizens, even as tragedy struck. we watched in horror as the towers came down. four years later, we sat in shock as water poured in to the lower ninth ward. the terror of 9/11 was followed by a deep sense of connection with each other, a sense of solidarity as americans, and a recognition of our shared vulnerability. in fact, it made us afraid and that fear did make us band together, but it also is true that our unified desire to respond to 9/11 helped us to make some disastrous choices. out of fear, we stood and allowed the erosion of america's civil liberties. out of our fear, we followed a misguided president in to a war with iraq. fear of terrorism made us afraid to criticize the troubling

choices of bush tradition, until four years later, another vulnerability. august 29th, 2005, hurricane katrina toppled the levees that protect new orleans. killed more than 1,500 people. destroyed nearly 100,000 homes, displaced more than 1 million gulf coast residents and crippled the mississippi gulf coast and southeastern louisiana. we watched as americans were abandoned on the rooftops of their homes, and we realized our system could not even get water to the people of a major american city for days. this, too, reminded us that we are all vulnerable. not only to the danger of foreign enemies but the neglect of public constitutions them lessons of katrina were critical lessons. katrina exposed the consequences of our aging, inadequate

infrastructure. the floodwaters revealed the long-standing racial and economic differences that made an entire population vulnerable to disaster. how long did those lessons last? did our priorities a as nation change in any profound way. what momentum it brought has been halted by this recession. right now, even as the wealth gap between iet white americans and americans of color widens the argument in washington over how much of the social safety net we must cut while not raising taxes on the rich, right now as the president reminds us time and again that we need to spend on fixing our crumbling infrastructure he is met with opposition from republicans who say we can't afford it. right now, a we try to prevent more disasters that are made worse by environmental degradation like the