We all know by now what Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert had to say about rebuilding New Orleans:
We ought to take a second look at it. But you know we build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake fissures and they rebuild too. Stubbornness.
Let's parse this. Obviously, this was not a prepared comment, hence all the rapid back pedaling. But this off-the-cuff remark reveals what Hastert really thinks, his gut reaction. Notice the three cities he mentions as "stubborn": New Orleans, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These cities share in common two things - they reliably vote Democratic, and they are icons of things Republicans dislike.