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Buddy Story
Haley Barbour and his wife Marsha in Biloxi. After Hurricane Katrina, the backslapping governor says, it's a time for "hitching up your britches."
(Susan Walsh -- AP)
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The Barbours are exhausted -- the first lady from another day trip to "the devastation," the governor from a regimen of meetings, briefings, troubleshoots. Aides are scurrying to rearrange the next day's schedule upon news that President Bush would be coming to Gulfport and Barbour would be returning with him to Washington on Air Force One. A steward keeps refilling their glasses with wine and whiskey.
Marsha has spent most of her days recently tending to the obliterated coast. She was part of the first response team of state and National Guard workers to arrive in Gulfport.
"Marsha's got a great hurricane story," the governor says. "You wanna tell it, baby?"
Yes, she does, and commences with a zigzagging account that features the first lady knocking on a stranger's door "because I had to go to the little girls' room."
"Hi, I'm Marsha Barbour," she said to the woman who answered the door.
"Oh, hi. My name is Katrina," the woman said. ("Really. Can you believe that?" Marsha says. "Her name was actually Katrina. What are the chances?")
The conversation veers from silly to random to sentimental: Marsha Barbour starts to describe "the devastation" but tears up. "You don't need to write this," she says.
Quickie story: Barbour invited a reporter for the Biloxi Sun Herald to join him on a helicopter tour of "the devastation." And the reporter, Geoff Pender, was in tears.
"Damn near weeping," Barbour says. "This a reporter we're talking about. Crying. You believe that?"
"Hey, he might be a reporter, but he's a person, too," Marsha says charitably.
"She gives 'em the benefit of the doubt," the governor says of reporters.
Rudy Giuliani was at the mansion recently. They drank wine and smoked cigars. Marsha says she doesn't mind Haley's occasional cigar-smoking, provided he doesn't try to kiss her afterward.
