Honore Moving Back to Louisiana

Lafayette's The Daily Advertiser (via The Dead Pelican) is reporting that retired Lt. General Russel Honore is moving back to Louisiana. Hmmmmmmm.

He is a registered voter from his Zachary home, but has been traveling the country on his preparedness lecture tour.

Earlier this week, the Bayou Buzz reported that Honore is considering a primary run against Senator David Vitter in 2010. This would be a serious challenge for Vitter; Honore is the tough, no-nonsense leader who restored some semblance of order when local government collapsed after Hurricane Katrina four years ago.

According to the Bayou Buzz post, "While polls show Vitter as the clear favorite in both the primary and the general election, one very senior Louisiana Republican predicted that if Honore runs, "He wins." As that GOP party elder further explained to the www.louisianaweekly.com and Bayoubuzz on the promise of confidentiality, "All he has to say is 'Stuck on Stupid', and Vitter is toast."

Honore dipped his toes back into the Louisiana policial mash last week when he called on the federal goverment to cough up some cash to replace the destroyed Charity Hospital; this quote from NOLA:

Meanwhile, Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore added his voice to those calling for the federal government to help pay for a new hospital to replace Charity, a shift in position for the man who commanded Joint Task Force-Katrina in the wake of the 2005 storm. In May, Honore told The Times-Picayune that Charity should have been reopened after the storm and that "the state of Louisiana needs to pay for its own damn medical center."

"Contrary to what I may have said in the past, the federal government needs to step up and provide a decent grant (to replace Charity) because the storm did destroy the hospital," Honore said last week.

The Charity Hospital connundrum has been festering ever since the storm in 2005. After the storm, the hospital was partially decontaminated but state and local officials made the decision to keep it closed. Honore thought the hospital could have been partially opened to provide emergency care in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. Ultimately, state officials wanted FEMA to pay the full costs for reopening the hospital as it was more than 50% damaged.

Honore was quoted as saying that Katrina had been used as an excuse to close Charity, thus hurting the city's poor residents. For more on Honore and the Charity story, go here.

Honore was raised in Lakeland in Pointe Coupee Parish and served in the Army for nearly 38 years before he retired. On 9/11 he will be speaking in Shreveport at a NAACP event at the Clarion hotel. Details are here if you want to attend.

Here is Honore's famous scene, "Don't Get Stuck on Stupid" which you may remember: