Quotes from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

“We cannot let bureaucracy and red tape delay our action while oil hits our wetlands week after week.”
(from ABC News, May 26)

“We know we’ve got to take action. We’ve got to have to take matters in our own hands if were going to win this fight to protect our coast.”
(from Politics Daily, May 24)

“Once we get the corps permit, my expectation is that the Coast Guard is going to force BP — they should force BP — to do this. It really doesn’t matter to me whether BP wants to or not. They’re the responsible party. It is their obligation to help protect this coast.”
(from The Times-Picayune, May 19)

“We’ve been frustrated with the disjointed effort to date that has too often meant too little, too late for the oil hitting our coast.”
(from ABC News, May 24)

“Let’s be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies.”
(from ABC News, May 24)

Quotes from James Carville, Democratic strategist and Louisiana native

“I’m as good a Democrat as most people, and I think this administration has done some good things. They are risking everything by this ‘go along with BP’ strategy they have that seems like, lackadaisical on this. They seem like they’re inconvenienced by this, this is some giant thing getting in their way and somehow or another, if you let BP handle it, it’ll all go away. It’s not going away. It’s growing out there. It is a disaster of the first magnitude, and they’ve got to go to Plan B.”
(from All Voices, May 26)

“Right now I wouldn’t trust BP to do anything. And nobody does.”
(from Huffington Post, May 21)

“It just looks like [Obama] is not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving. We’re about to die down here.”
(from ABC News, May 26)

“This is not WD-40. This is not 3-in-One. This is not stuff you put in your car.”
(from Los Angeles Times, May 26)

Quotes from Billy Nungesser, Plaquemines Parish president

“They had no plan to keep the oil out, even though they said it wouldn’t come ashore. They had no plan to clean it up. They have no plan to make the fishermen whole. It’s like it’s being run with a bunch of seventh-graders. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
(from CNN, May 26)

“Had you fallen off that boat yesterday and come up breathing that stuff, you probably wouldn’t be here today.”
(from The Examiner, May 22)

“This is our worst nightmare. The oil is getting into our inner wetlands, killing wildlife and decimating breeding grounds. There’s no sense of urgency, and we’re just reacting. We’re begging someone to step up to the plate and do the right thing, to throw the kitchen sink at this and do whatever we can.”
(from Christian Science Monitor, May 24)

“Once again we were dealt an untruth. How much more are we going to put up with?”
(from Los Angeles Times, May 26)

“This is the grim reaper.”
-Theophile Bourgeois, charter boat captain as he pointed to oil in Barataria Bay (from Politics Daily, May 24)

“What I want to know is how is BP going to rebuild Louisiana. I’m tired of all the profit being taken out of the area and nothing being put back.”
-Sean Walsh, Phoenix School (from The Guardian, May 27)

“It’s so sad when you look around here and you just think of what was here, what’s happening to it now and what’s eventually gonna happen to it. Unless we stop that oil out there, it’s just going to continue to keep coming in here and wipe out everything we have. I think we’re just starting to see the first wave of what’s really coming and what’s really coming I think is going to be devastating.”
-P.J. Hahn, the director of the Parish Coastal Zone Management Department (from The Examiner, May 22)

“The President scares me. When is he actually going to do something? And I worry; I know he doesn’t want to take ownership of it. I know politics. He said the minute he says, ‘I’m in charge,’ he takes the blame, but somebody has to. It’s in our interest.”
-Chris Matthews (from All Voices, May 26)

“I think this incident that happened… is another example to the American public that they can’t trust big corporations and they can’t trust big government to protect them. And I think ultimately it’s going to be a real political problem.”
-Matthew Dowd, political consultant (from ABC News, May 26)

“We can’t change the past, but we can do everything in our power to make the future better, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
-Tony Hayward, BP CEO (from ABC News, May 24)

“We’re dealing with more unknowns than knowns. We’ve never dealt with this type of oil release, with oil doing stuff we’ve never seen before.”
-Doug Zimmer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (from Christian Science Monitor, May 26)

“All the birds were walking around like a bunch of zombies.”
-George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fishermen’s Association in St. Bernard Parish (from The Examiner, May 26)

“I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I were a betting man, I would be betting that [BP's] plan is to let us die, then come back and do $75 million of cleanup, then close the book.”
-Craig Taffaro, St. Bernard Parish president (from Politics Daily, May 24)

“You can go ahead and blame BP or Exxon or anybody, but I just filled up my car this morning and I think we’re all a part of this.”
-Jay Holcomb, International Bird Rescue Center (from WFAA.com, May 26)

“Obama officials have it backwards: They talk tough about BP’s responsibilities but do not meet their own responsibilities under federal law.”
-Karl Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush (from Wall Street Journal, May 27)

“I feel for the guys who are doing it, the people whose hands are actually on the throttles there. It’s like doing brain surgery using robots under a mile of water with equipment that’s got 30,000 horsepower of energy inside of it.”
-Byron King, energy analyst (from Washington Post, May 27)

“We want to put some people in jail perhaps, but putting people in jail does not undo the damage that was done.”
-Rep. Dale E. Kildee, D-Mich. (from Washington Post, May 27)

“Our thoughts and prayers are very much with the people along the Gulf Coast. And then let me reiterate, we will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the cleanup is complete.”
-President Barack Obama (from New York Times, May 27)

“You don’t know what to do or what to expect. It’s almost as if someone took tar and threw it all over the place, and you’re left standing there going, ‘What do I do now?’”
-Shelita Woods-Muse, Chalmette resident (from Christian Science Monitor, May 27)

“For four days we were watching it come in and gave the coordinates to BP and they didn’t do anything. Heavy oil came into Barataria Bay, and it was not kept out of the marshes, so it’s a cleanup operation now, not a containment operation. Promises that were made over the past weeks were not kept. We were let down.”
-Deano Banano, Jefferson Parish Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness director (from Christian Science Monitor, May 24)

Brent Barksdale’s Louisiana Political Quotes available at Amazon.