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Another MoveOn.org supporter pulled the now crying woman away, telling her, "Don't make this the event." Other protesters criticized members of the media for videotaping the confrontation and interviewing McMillan, who said she understood the verbal assault.

"Well, she was upset. She was just upset. It's okay, I can understand that people get emotional," McMillan said. "I want the people to get help, but I don't think this is the time for blame and criticism or the time for MoveOn.org to take advantage of this."

MoveOn.org supporters continued to heckle members of the press and interrupt McMillan as she explained why she lodged her one-woman counter-protest.

"I think we all need to be supporting our president. Not only our president, but the other people who work for him," she said. "He's not the only one in the government to be blamed for anything ... just to blame one person, to me, that isn't right.

"I support the president," McMillan concluded. "I don't say that he does everything right, but nobody does, you know?"

MoveOn.org claims contradicted by federal spending records

Speaking with Cybercast News Service after the event, Matzzie implied that cuts by the Bush administration might have been responsible for the breaching of New Orleans levees.

"The administration, OMB (Office of Management and Budget) cut out of the budget, what was it, $71 million in funding for the levee upgrades in Louisiana. OMB is a function of the White House, the OMB director reports to the White House," Matzzie said. "And, that money could have been used to upgrade the levees."

But records Cybercast News Service obtained from the U.S. Senate's Energy and Water Development Subcommittee paint a different picture. According to an analysis of funding for Corps of Engineers projects from fiscal years 2001 through 2005, Louisiana was the top recipient of funding in the country, getting $1.9 billion of the Corps' $22.9 billion budget.

The three Corps flood control projects surrounding New Orleans received a total of $391 million in direct funding during that five-year period.

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), believes there was more than enough money to correct any deficiencies in the levee system, even without funding the Corps of Engineers. But, in his opinion, much of the money was wasted.

"Like all the other appropriations bills Energy and Water has been filled with pork," Schatz complained. "It's the nature of the problem in Washington that members of Congress like spending money, especially on pork-barrel projects, and that means that significant national priorities are ignored."

CAGW identified nearly $631 million in what it considers pork-barrel projects just in the 2005 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. The group's 2005 "Pig Book" details millions of dollars for such projects that went to Louisiana following the efforts of the state's congressional delegation, especially Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and former Republican U.S. Rep. and current Sen. David Vitter.

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