Newsweek.com--Reflecting on the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that as the administration's highest-ranking African-American at that time, she regretted being on vacation in New York during the storm crisis.
“On Thursday morning, I woke up, [and] there I was in New York, and I thought: ‘How could I have been so stupid to not realize that you are not just the secretary of state, you are one of the president’s closest advisers?’” she said Sunday in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “This is a national tragedy, and most importantly, you are the highest-ranking African-American in the administration, and Katrina has a tragically black face.”
Rice said she immediately returned to Washington that afternoon and later traveled to her home state, Alabama, to help with the recovery.
“I first went to the White House and talked to the president about what I said was our ‘race problem,’” Rice said. “Then I did go south. I went to Mobile, to my home state of Alabama. I really wanted it to be seen that the president of the United States had not just compassion but concern for the tragedy in New Orleans.”
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, November 27th 2011 at 4:24PM
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