Apr
13
“I think Katrina just did us a really big favor, to be crass about it,” Emanuel said. He called Bill Burton, his communications director at DCCC, and ordered him to find out which Republican congressmen from the Gulf region had voted to cut the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps was responsible for New Orleans levees, and given the levees’ fate, such a vote would now look reckless. “Hey, look, if the AP doesn’t do it, let’s see if either the [New Orleans Times] Picayune would do it or we can go to a blog,” Emanuel said. “No fingerprints,” he added curtly, meaning the news item should not be traceable to the DCCC.”
From Naftali Bendavid, The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 53.
