U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, is staying abreast of activities along the Gulf Coast and said Wednesday [August 31] morning the devastation in Louisiana is unimaginable. Certainly a challenging day, Coleman said, as federal officials work in Mississippi and Louisiana to bring aid.
The article is dated September 1, but there are no quotation marks anywhere in the report. We don't know, then, exactly what Coleman told Mary Nelson of the Daily News (Wahpeton, ND and Breckenridge, MN).
It would appear, though, that on August 31 Coleman was talking up the federal response to Katrina but on September 7 thought that local officials should be responsible. Smilin' Norm's comments of September 7 are not only despicable, but they appear to directly contradict statements made a week before.