The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee toured New Orleans yesterday to survey the damage, examine progress, and try and make things better for the still suffering people of that city. Sen. Barack Obama was highly critical of the Bush administration and so was New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. The administration said things were going pretty well actually. Here though is the killer:

The hearing is one of the first that the Homeland Security Committee has scheduled since the Senate passed to Democratic control. No Republican members attended.

No Republican members (three Democrats attended), none – unbelievable in its utter predictablity. And yet it still boggles my mind. How, even from a political perspective, can not one of the Republicans attend, let alone a moral perspective? If it was once stereotypically true that Democrats were hostile to faith and Republicans hostile to the poor. Democrats, however, have been trying to reach across the faith divide. Republicans? Nothing. Here is the list of Republican committee members who didn’t attend – a list of shame:

Where are the phone calls flooding the Senate switchboards mobilized by Christian political leaders like Dr. Dobson and Mr. Robertson? Where are the bushels of letters pouring into the offices of these members reminding them that Jesus cares enormously for the poor and sick and hurting? Where is the outrage that these people didn’t even bother to go and survey the problems? Maybe they are just late in arriving.