Redstate

Has a pretty convincing defense of Ray Nagin. He's not the screw up Tom DeLay wants us to think he is.

New Orleans' Democrat Mayor turned the evacuation of the city into a cruel joke by ordering it at the last minute and not providing transportation for the poorest and most vulnerable.  Gov. Blanco let the poor of New Orleans' suffer victimization for days by refusing to promptly send in the National Guard to restore order.  And somehow Bush gets the blame for being uncaring and unprepared?

Yes he does, because the Louisiana Dems are playing a bad hand very boldly.  By refusing to get into the "blame game", the GOP has allowed the politicians who are most responible for the crisis to escape the consequences of their actions and Bush finds himself denying that he is either rascist or incompetent, while the culprits hurl accusations from the sidelines.

The lesson is that the GOP cannot declare a unilateral political peace even in moments of tragedy and disaster.  If Republicans don't hold Democrats clearly responsible for Democratic wrongdoing, then Republicans will be blamed for the errors of Democrats.  

Landrieu isn't deranged to be acting as she is.  She is crazy like a snake.

I can't believe that Landrieu had the unmitigated gall to call state & local efforts 'near perfect' in one of her appearances on Sunday.

First of all, there's this graphic that demonstrates that even after the flooding, there were buses available, and a clear route to safety:

http://www.blindmanphoto.com/images/Stop-Blaming-FEMA.jpg

Then there's this horrifying story of two paramedics that were caught in New Orleans and tried to escape, but, above and beyond being lied to by the police commander at Canal St., were shot at while trying to cross the Crescent City Bridge to safety:

http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18427.shtml

So what part of the New Orleans disaster plan called for shooting at refugees trying to flee the city?  I'd really like to know, Ms. Landrieu.

His defense of Nagin's culpability is one-third valid, one-third vigorous hand-waving & begging the question on the subject of the buses, and one-third refusal to even discuss Nagin's late evacuation decision.  I think he's overidentifying with Nagin - they're both bald conservatives with roots in New Orleans, after all.

Personally, I think that Nagin was a corruption-fighter who didn't really think through his potential responsibilities as a crisis manager, and went to pieces under pressure from an unexpected direction.

Did any of you just happen to come across this.

http://villagevoice.com/news/0537,rozen,67724,2.html

perhaps this is why people are so outraged, me I'm just sickened.

But then again I'm always outraged at the Villiage Voice so nothing new there.

I wouldn't dismiss her remarks as paranoia. There have been a surprising number of false statements showing up nearly simultaneously in various outlets, suggesting a coordinated effort to spread disinformation. Considering the Bush administrations unpleasant record in this regard (such as Rove's now well-documented campaign to spread the falsehood that Valerie Plame "authorized" her husband's trip), it is hard not to see their fingerprints on this.

For example:

-the claim that Blanco only approved a mandatory evacuation after Bush "begged" her to do so (in fact, Bush spoke to her only shortly before the press conference that was already scheduled to announce the evacuation).

-the claim that 2000 New Orleans school buses sat unused (New Orleans never had 2000 school buses; as of 2003, their entire fleet numbered 324, including buses that were broken down)

• the claim that the governor of Louisiana never requested Federal troops before the storm (the governors of both Louisiana and Mississippi requested additional security forces before the storm hit).
• the claim that the governor of Louisiana did not declare a state of emergency until after the storm hit (it was actually Sept. 26, before the storm).
• the claim that the Homeland Security National Response Plan says that federal resources are only supposed to be "backup" to state resources, and that a state request is required for federal support (the plan actually says that the federal government will be "proactive" and that "Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude.")

Did you read the article, I should have made it clearer. I am outraged at FEMA and this administration. It just happened to be in the village voice, look at the references in the article.

I admit that I don't know much of anything about Nagin outside of this disaster, but I find it hard to believe that he is a conservative.  

Is it that he is conservative compared to previous NO mayors?  

elections? The GOP ought to be able to knock this idiot out of office pretty easily now.

Ray Nagin came out of the lower 9th Ward; a largely African American working class place. No projects there so lower crime than other working class places, the people there right after the flood collected their boats from flooded driveways and such and started rescuing people off roofs and chopping through attics. Tells you what you need to know about them. Pretty much the same type of folks who trudged up the WTC stairwells on 9/11 or fought back on Flight 93 or went back into the burning Pentagon. Your average American heroes.

Nagin got his BA from Tuskegee and MBA from Tulane, both outstanding Southern Schools. Was a registered Republican until the last Election when he switched to win in New Orleans. Endorsed Jindal over Blanco and gave money to Bush in 2000. Was a former Cox Communications exec and sports entrepeneur, starting the New ORleans Brass Minor League Hockey team, that was screwed over by the corrupt Morial Administration to lure the Charlotte Hornets over to New Orleans (With public money).

In sort of defense of Nagin, he's really a DINO who was a corruption fighter hemmed in by the unspoken reality of New Orleans. CRIME.

He wasn't able to follow the Plan and evacuate people because his bus drivers were not going into the bad neighborhoods particularly the projects to get killed or raped or whatever. Cops flat out refused to go in and the Governor did not want the National Guard shooting thugs so did not use them. Nagin ran out of options and just gave up. It's understandable but not excusable. I think he was a decent man who was just overwhelmed. He wasn't Rudy and certainly not the folks who he grew up with who when it came time to stand up and be counted, did so with true heroism.

[Never forget that New Orleans that week was filled with heroes, amidst the obvious villains the thugs. The ordinary working class, mostly African American folks who kept the city alive after almost everyone else had abandoned it showed their true heroism]

Nagin is just the wrong guy. In a real city even a guy like Daly of Chicago would have done whatever was necessary to save the people.

Nagin's statement that he NEVER INTENDED to implement his disaster plan is damning enough, given that he, the State, and the Feds did a desk-exercise to game an evacuation in response to a major hurricane just last year.

If there was no intent to follow the plan, why have one? This is failure at the greatest possible magnitude at the Mayor's Office (driven mostly by fear of crime and the means required to confront it). For that Nagin deserves the highest possible condemnation.

The buses in TOTAL including transit buses owned by the City are around 2,000; enough to get most of the poor out to Baton Rouge. If actually organized. However Nagin and Louisiana operated on the belief that they simply would not be hit; despite or because of Ivan's near miss last year.

Nagin said he couldn't get drivers for the buses so didn't use them to get folks out of the city who did not have cars. THAT failure speaks for itself. When Nagin and Blanco were screaming for buses to be collected from the entire nation, nearly 2,000 combined city and school buses sat underwater because Nagin did not move them to the high ground in the City (THAT is a local failure).

Blanco waited until WED to ask Texas and Arkansas for help under mutual aid compacts, and complained that "no one told her" she had to do that. Total incompetence. Blanco refused to send the 3,000 National Guardsmen she had by Tue into the City because she was afraid of shooting thugs and political fallout. She kept the Red Cross and Salvation Army out starting on late Monday (for fear of people "not leaving" Superdome and Convention Center). Blanco refused and has still refused to declare martial law, and let the looters run wild on Monday/Tuesday when firm action could have restored order. Instead she cried a lot on TV. Then when it was far too late postured about how she had Natural Born Killers or somesuch coming in from Iraq duties. Louisiana buses from other parishes were not forthcoming (the State has about 21,000 of them) because people in other parishes feared for their lives from the thugs in New Orleans. Utlimately after delay and delay Blanco agreed to use the Guard as drivers. A disgraceful performance.

Brown deserves condemnation for not dialing up the assistance to all-hands-on-deck; and massive mobilization of unprecedented scope. However even if had done so, Blanco STILL BY LAW had command of the situation and things would have been only marginally better. Buses underwater locally require them from other areas which is subject to the tyranny of time and distance, particularly since I-10 west of Kenner was simply GONE for miles and miles. East and North of the City was also GONE for I-10 and the Ponchartrain Expressway. So failure of the locals to ACT meant delay and delay even if Brown had been a better responder.

Florida officials have severely criticized both Mississippi and Louisiana officials, starting under the Late Lawton Chiles and expanding under Bush, Governors and the Legislature have made if very clear to locals and State officials alike that handling Hurricane response is Job #1 (and this is bipartisan too btw) hence professional response.

Landriuea is a joke; she's scapegoating instead of confronting the total and complete failure of the locals to handle ANY decision competently.

It honestly seems like only yesterday that Landrieu squaked past Republican Election Commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, who never really impressed me, in a special runoff election in December of 2002.

She won, the theory goes, because former President Clinton made some phone calls on got out the New Orleans and Baton Rouge black vote BIGTIME.

Your'e killin' me. Now stop it. Go be outraged elsewhere.

is not evidence of orleans parish failure, but the inhumanity of gretna and its police force

and had their been a significant national guard presence there, maybe that incident wouldnt have happened

should the nola police have gotten into a shoot out with the gretna police?

I agree mostly, but the really damning moment wasn't when they didn't pick people up in the projects - it was when they didn't move to save the bus fleet from the waters.   That didn't require heroism or masses, just a couple dozen drivers moving fast.  Any previous shortfall or shortcoming could have been redeemed if they had those school buses to empty out the convention center and the Superdome.  Drivers could have been found as they went.  

Transportation is flexibility.  Without those buses, Nagin's feet were figuratively nailed to the floor.

The buses in TOTAL including transit buses owned by the City are around 2,000; enough to get most of the poor out to Baton Rouge.

Again, one has to wonder who is seeding the media with this sort of disinformation. As of May 5, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority owned 364 public buses, bringing the total of the city's public transit and school buses to fewer than 700. The New York Times reported

Experts disagreed on whether there were adequate evacuation plans for those most in need. Brian Wolshon, an L.S.U. civil engineering professor who consulted on the state evacuation plan, said the city relied almost entirely on a "Good Samaritan scenario," in which residents would check on elderly and disabled neighbors and drive them out of the city if necessary.

Planning was stymied by a shortage of buses, he said. As many as 2,000 buses, far more than New Orleans possessed, would be needed to evacuate an estimated 100,000 elderly and disabled people.

This strategy of seeding the media with multiple false claims, individually readily refuted but adding up to create a misleading public impression, is suspiciously similar to one that we have seen used very effectively in political campaigns orchestrated by Rove.

more Roveian conspiracies.