Douglas Brinkley: No leadership from Bush

Tough words on Scarborough Country MSNBC for President Bush

I am doing a book, and I interviewed Trent Lott the other day. And, if you look at Mississippi, both Thad Cochran and Lott are piece by piece getting some of the money. The Landrieu-Vitter bill, which had asked for the $250 billion, had gotten shot down.

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SCARBOROUGH: Doug, what is the one thing that you believe leaders on the federal level need to do to make sure they can turn this corner and rebuild Mississippi and Louisiana?

BRINKLEY: It`s about leadership.

When you look at presidents, a Theodore Roosevelt or a Harry Truman or a Ronald Reagan, the great American presidents would not let a region die and suffer. They would have seen this as the bell ringing. This would be the moment that would define their presidency, and it is not too late for President Bush to do that. But he gave a very powerful speech in Jackson Square. The blue lights were behind him, and, if you read that speech, it was wonderful.

But the reality is, the speech is -- was phony. And we are not getting the funding. We are not getting the federal attention, and I think that it`s tragic. And if President Bush wants to ignore New Orleans, then just say so. Let us know. Let us know not to come back, there are never going to be levees built, that we are not going to be -- there isn`t going to be a massive public works project.

You know, there are people where I`m at, in Houston, that want to work. They are looking to go back to New Orleans. Why not create a WPA, look at the leadership of somebody like Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression? Let`s see a little bit of that out of this president.