REPUBLICANS SEEK TO DEPOPULATE LOUISIANA

Alphonso R. Jackson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, anticipates many black evacuees will never return to New Orleans:

Mr. Jackson, whose remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle, said New Orleans might reach a population of 375,000 people sometime late next year with a black population of about 40 percent at the highest, down from 67 percent before Hurricane Katrina sent a storm surge that overwhelmed New Orleans levees and flooded 80 percent of the city.

Many blacks may not be able to return to the Ninth Ward because it's impractical to rebuild in such a low-lying area. Lefties see this as the realization of a Republican fantasy:

In the storm's aftermath, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, charged that relocating evacuees across the country was "racist" and designed to move black people, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, out of Louisiana.

Rev. Jackon, Waters and the other lefties are all up in arms about Secretary Jackson's remarks and would dearly love to call him a racist only they can't; he's black. Anyway, evacuees who eventually settle outside Louisiana can consider themselves lucky.