New Orleans dying as it waits for Washington to get its act together.

ContraCostaTimes.com

Vickie Bassetti, 66, owner of Bassetti Fine Art Photographs in the French Quarter, said Friday that residents are feeling "more abandoned than ever" by official Washington.

"The reality is being ignored or it's more than they are capable of coping with," she said. "They have other agendas."

Tulane University history professor Lawrence Powell said that Washington is treating New Orleanians "like we're some kind of Kleenex that you can just use and throw away."

Washington doesn't seem to care that Louisiana supplies energy to and receives river-carried waste from a large part of the country, he said. "Then they tell us we are stupid to live down here."

He was especially annoyed by the first lady's comments about government's slow pace, saying, "It may work that way under Bush, but it didn't work that way under Lyndon Johnson."