Three cheers for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Democratic party leader Donna Brazille, who are rising above politics to help the president in attempts to rebuild the Gulfport region of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Both Obama and Brazille have made dramatic statements that reflect a common commitment for racial reconciliation and for waging war on poverty to restore hope to people and families in Biloxi, New Orleans and other cities and communities in the hurricane-ravaged region.
In the same spirit, former Secretary of Housing Henry Cisneros, Urban League President Marc Morial and I (among others) are helping lead a home-building effort to raise money to bring Habitat for Humanity into the relief and reconstruction campaign. We've enlisted the support of Warner Bros. Records, NBC, and Tim Blixseth, a lumber and resort entrepreneur, to raise money and challenge others to get involved in helping low-income families to get their shot at a dream of ownership.
I was thrilled to hear President Bush refer to Habitat as integral to his urban homesteading initiative. Our hope is that mayors and governors in the region will donate vacant properties where Habitat for Humanity volunteers can build homes that will house families, help communities expand the tax base and stabilize neighborhoods.
Too many Democrats blame the president as indifferent to the plight of the poor and the suffering in the region. Conversely, Republicans are accusing the president of reckless spending and allowing the federal government to grow in this crisis. Imagine what a dispossessed low-income family living in Houston's Astrodome might think of Republican conservatives who talk about not spending the money on necessary emergency relief, restoration and rebuilding the region. Abraham Lincoln faced the same criticism in 1862 when he passed the Homestead Act and the Republicans who voted against it said the act would cost money. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish politics.
Most of those who criticize the president's spending in this crisis are the same who recently voted for the pork-laden highway bill and the no-energy energy bill. This is the hypocrisy W.F. Buckley defined as "the tribute that vice pays to virtue."
When the president alluded to the history of racial discrimination that for so long denied equality of opportunity and economic justice to people of color, he showed an understanding of the issue and compassion for people all too often neglected by the party of Lincoln in the past. There are appalling cases of historical racial discrimination in education, housing and employment that have contributed to the conditions we all saw on television in that tragic and historic catastrophe.