Last Wednesday, after the House Health and Welfare Committee unanimously passed HB 780 and Treasurer John Kennedy delivered a stinging public rebuke of the financing underpinning LSU's new medical center proposal, LSU President Dr. John Lombardi spoke to an audience of supporters at a university event here in New Orleans.

Suasan Edwards of WWLTV reported on the talk as part of the station's coverage of the day's events but did not go into great detail. We were curious about what was said and were appreciative that LSU made audio of Mr. Lombardi's talk available at their website. BEFORE you click that link, be warned that audio plays automatically and Mr. Lombardi, who is introduced at approximated five minutes into the clip, uses language that may not be appropriate if you're reading from work.

While Dr. Lombardi may raise some valid points, the confrontational tone he takes toward the Legislature and toward New Orleans itself distracts from whatever substance he may have been trying to convey. We have been able to extract some examples but please do listen to the whole audio so that you can rest assured that the clips we've isolated are indeed emblematic of the tone of Dr. Lombardi's speech and responses during Q & A. While not the whole story, we found Lombardi's posturing, especially as it relates to the Legislature, to be quite newsworthy and were surprised no media accounts made mention of it.

Note: the transcipts pasted below the embedded youtube clips may be rough, but you've got the horse's mouth right there.

Lombardi on the Legislature:

"Let's get this thing moving. Let's stop talking about how to divide ourselves and let's talk about how to combine ourselves and make this thing happen. So call your Legislator, tell them to do the right thing and get out of our way so we can conquer this thing and make it succeed. They need to get out of our way! We're not asking the Legislature for a damn thing. We want them to be gone so that we can make this thing happen. So tell them to get out of the way."

More after the jump...

Lombardi on New Orleans and history:

"And yet, we're all hung up on these historical things that you all talk about and I don't understand. One of the virtues of being a newcomer is I don't know half the time what the hell you're talking about. I don't know! I go to these meetings and people say {unintelligible gibberish} and I say 'What the hell are you talking about? Aren't we trying to build an academic medical center here that's going to succeed?"

More clips here.