NAGIN AGAIN

"Frankly, New Orleans was a damp dump before Katrina and I wonder why anybody in their right mind would want to rebuild such a thing."

Over at Whizbang, blogger Paul took a stab at defending New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's remarks recently about New York City's rebuilding after 9/11 (technically he claims not to be doing so, but the article is in fact a defense of his remarks):

"You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Many have considered this an attack on former New York City mayor Giuliani, although he was never mentioned and is no longer the mayor of that city. To put the comment by mayor Nagin in context, here's more of the story:

On a tour of the decimated Ninth Ward, Nagin tells Pitts the city has removed most of the debris from public property and it’s mainly private land that’s still affected – areas that can’t be cleaned without the owners' permission. But when Pitts points to flood-damaged cars in the street and a house washed partially into the street, the mayor shoots back. "That’s alright. You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Nagin is confident New Orleans will be whole again and will even be able to withstand another hurricane of Katrina strength, pointing out that taller and stronger levees are being built. It will take time.

"We’re into a five-to-seven-year build cycle … . At the end of the day, I see the city being totally rebuilt. I see us eliminating blight, still being culturally unique," Nagin says.

However, even the city council sees some problems with progress so far:

"Should things have happened quicker? Yes. But everyone has their own style of leadership, and right now our political leader, our political father is Ray Nagin," says Oliver Thomas, New Orleans City Council president.

"So for the next four years, we’re going to sink or swim with him," Thomas tells Pitts.

Paul compared the events of Hurricane Katrina with the events on 9/11 and the responses of each mayor to the crises, and comes to the conclusion that people are criticizing Nagin for not magically rebuilding the city in a year. Personally I've not seen or heard such comments, but perhaps Paul has met them somewhere.

He compares speeches made by Giuliani and Nagin, claiming Nagin didn't have access to a microphone, which doesn't exactly match my memories of his comments constantly complaining that President Bush didn't do his job and everyone, everywhere - especially President Bush personally - were to blame rather than him for this catastrophe.

Paul is right, the two events were too dissimilar to draw comparisons between. Then he defends Nagin for doing just that. Lorie Byrd has a decent rebuttal to the points made, pointing out the courage and leadership Giuliani provided in a critical point, although she relies too much on defending Giuliani which is odd since Nagin never mentioned the man.

Commenters responded to Paul's article:

I’m not defending Nagin in any way.

Could've fooled me.

Paul,

I think most are upset that Nagin called the site of the WTC "just a hole in the ground". I am sure he would get upset if someone called NOLA "just a swamp".

I know better then to expect NOLA to be rebuilt in 12 months. Perhaps you should tell Nagin that. He seems to expect the federal government to go in, wave a magic wand and *presto*-it is all cleaned up and totally rebuilt.

From the get-go he has lobbed race cards and excuses. He was all bent out of shape about Mexican workers coming for the reconstruction jobs and the "Hispanification of New Orleans". He has constantly stated that everything concerning the reconstruction of NOLA is race based-from his "chocolate city" remarks to his recent "blame whitey" remarks because NOLA isn't completely rebuilt by now. It is Nagin who has the unrealistic expectations, not us.

Now...

Only a fool will think that NOLA will ever be the same as it was a year ago. The harsh reality is that the New Orleans you and I knew is dead. Even if it is rebuilt it will never be the same.

It is the people (both good and bad) that make a city what it is and most of the people who evacuated are not going to go back there. Some are traumatized and coould not handle living with the memories, some have had enough of hurricanes and do not want to live within 500 miles of the coast anymore, some simply do not want to live below sea level knowing what can happen, some for finacial reasons, some because they have cut their losses and started a new life where they are now.

Sure, new people will move there for the opprotunities presented and if I were to place a wager NOLA in ten years will not be a "chocloate city", it will be a "flan city" where spanish will be heard more then french.
-by Nahanni


When you look at sheer amount of material and infrastructure destroyed, New Orleans wins hands down. On that point, nobody can disagree. Nagin just has a bad habit and good history of saying stupid/inappropriate things to make his points.

And I think the thing for everybody to think about is that things like big buildings in large cities, or even major portions of cities themselves, don't sprout up in no time. I'd say that both the WTC site and New Orleans will be rebuilt/repaired/revamped in the natural time it takes to do so for each. To the ADD-riddled Americans that may read this:these tasks won't be wrapped up in a nifty little package like you see on a TV show.
According to this site, the WTC planning by the city began in 1962, and the first tower was opened in 1970, and the other in 1972. That's 10 years from initial city engagement to final fruition. Keep that in mind everybody!!! New Orleans will be an even bigger endeavor.
-by Tony


"In New Orleans, the Corps of Engineers destroyed an entire city."

Statements like that make the entire rest of your posting, which by the way I tend to agree with, a worthless bunch of crap. The Army Corps of Engineers didn't destroy anything, Katrina did!

You can never appear rational, when you start off sounding irrational.
-by USMC Pilot

[Paul responded that the Army Corps of Engineers took the blame for the levees not being built to withstand the flood surge, but the fact is, Katrina created the flood surge, and without it no such tragedy would have occurred. Further, since the state had been warned for years these levees would not hold up to such an event and did nothing I think it's a bit disingenuous to blame men who built something you did not take the trouble to shore up in your own state]

I think you missed the point of Nagin's comments AND the people who are criticizing him for them, Paul.

Nagin was making claims about how much had been accomplished, and a reporter pointed at a visible piece of evidence that refuted the claim, whereupon Nagin attacked the NYC effort for no [explative deleted] reason whatsoever.

Nagin's criticizing the REBUILDING by dismissively and vitriolically calling Ground Zero "a hole in the ground" (which it is, but no need to be an [explative deleted] about it) and trying to use that to defend his own incompetence.

He's not talking about the cleanup of GZ. He himself compaired REBUILDING to CLEANUP. It was a false comparison from the start, and more evidence that Chocolate Cityboy doesn't know his ass from his elbow. You're compounding the false comparison and taking it further out to left field.

Nagin wasn't properly comparing cleanup to cleanup. He was incorrectly trying to use the lack of rebuilding the GZ site to defend the lack of cleanup...not rebuilding, but clearing of debris, in New Orleans.
-by JimK


As a MAYOR OF A CITY you are suppose to know every
nook and cranny of your city, further if you have 3 to 7 days to prepare your city for a disaster
and you don t get your ducks in a row until it was to late you don t deserve to throw stones at
someone else to save your hide.

Living in here in south Florida we have seen our share of storms, and when a storm approachs we make sure that the elderly, homeless people are evacuated from the keys and low lying areas.

The best example is the free shuttle service for all the keys.

Those in hospitals are flown to other parts of the state.
This was a complete break down from Mayor to Gov.
-by ama055131


The difference in scale between hurricane damage and terrorist attacks is not the point. The events were very different in nature, but they both tested two mayors of important cities. Hurricane Katrina did not attack New Orleans. It was a storm. New York was attacked. In fact, all of the US was the target. No one knew if that was it or if more waves of attacks were coming. Rudy helped New York and the rest of the country weather the attacks and recover. Who was inspired by Nagin? Who drew courage from him? Who learned leadership from him? Nagin is a corrupt, incompetant fool. What he says is not important.
-by eman


"If you placed all the cars destroyed in New Orleans end to end they would reach from the broken 17th street canal floodwall all the way to New York’s ground zero."

...the only reason there were enough destroyed cars to stretch from NO to NYC is because Nagin didn't get the people to use them to evacuate themselves from the city...now he gets a break because it is a bigger job to clean them up?
-by lurking

DoctorJ said it: There's no comparison. It's apples and oranges, squid and Pontiacs.

I gotta second this.

However, the big difference to me was, New York got hit out of the blue and Giuliani got down to business. He didn't whine and complain about the lack of fed help(though he may have behind the scenes). New Orleans had advance warning, and Nagin did. Giuliani acted more like a leader and Nagin did not. I was more inclined to help the rest of the region who DIDN'T display the woe is me and why aren't I getting more and faster help from the rest of you people attitude. But thats just me.
-by wilky


Apples and oranges.

That said, more people died on 9/11, murdered, than Katrina killed. Many of the Katrina deaths were totally preventable if Nagin and Blanco had followed their pre-existing plans.

The Corps may have flooded NOLA, but they killed no one. The personal choices made by some of the residents, and the decisions by politicians not to follow their plans did that. And, one could argue, the Corps did exactly what the politicians told it to do. It's been a source of pork and a political pawn for decades and the people of NOLA reaped the results. And until a year ago, the majority of the people of New Orleans were content with those conditions.

The disaster that struck New Orleans demonstrates one great truth. Don't count on the government.

Rudy is an icon. Whether or not he was right or wrong during the murders on 9/11, his was the calm and serious voice everyone in the United State heard. On 9/10 he was an SOB. On 9/12 he could have been elected Pope. In a narrow set of circumstances, he met a need the people had for a leader. He inspired us all at a time when we needed inspiration.

Nagin and Blanco cannot say that. Not ever.
-by Chuck Simmins


So Paul - if Katrina hadn't come along NOLA would have flooded anyway. since the Corps "caused" the flooding? Uh-huh.

And, of course, no one in NOLA has any responsibility whasoever for protecting their own city?

And another thing - Paul - you might know NOLA and Katrina, but I suspect you are as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to enginnering, construction, demolition, or emergency response. Your comments suggest as much. Don't be mad - most people don't understand these issues any better than you do.

Look, what is pissing the rest of us off is not whether or not the city has been re-built, but this mindless whinning blame game by everyone in NOLA.

To illustrate. My neighbor (Mr. Nagin) puts a shitty cheap roof on his house. The wind blows off his shingles.

Mr. Nagin then starts in. It was the contractor. It was the goverment. It was me for being an uncaring racist and not jumping up to help him immediately. I could've/would've/ should've saved his roof for him. Waaaahhh.

Meanwhile, down the street, Mr. Guliani is busy tacking back up his shingles. I decide to go by and help. He says "thanks bud." I feel good.

Paul - you getting any of this?
-by Big D

Paul responded repeatedly to people in an abusive, unpleasant manner, then began deleting comments and calling people morons for making them. I don't know what comments were deleted. They may have been unacceptable, and the people may have been morons, but I do know what Paul said, here are some highlights:

"Sigh... Stupidity on parade."
"Nahanni, well, you're still just a clueless idiot."
"Don't try to bullsh*t me.
Go watch the video before you embarrass yourself. Again."
"Sigh... Stupid and unwilling to learn -- a dangerous combo."
"Now please.... I've not deleted anyone from this thread for being stupid. Don't be the first."
"Sometimes stupidity is just overwheming. Tongiht for example."
"No rickinstl I deleted you because you're an ***hole."
"Doc they wallow in stupidity."
"It is amazing how stupid some people can be."

There's more, that's just a sample of his responses. Now, I understand that in comments, people can become very passionate and animated, and begin to yell at each other, in a sense. I know that it is easy to be frustrated, and that sometimes people are being stupid and there's little else to say about them.

But there are two problems here. First, Paul is being incredibly patronizing and arrogant, attacking people for disagreeing with him when they were, in fact, right - such as when they pointed out what the video said, and Paul over and over, in an insulting manner, attacked them for being wrong, until he bothered to check. Second, he started out with this approach, he didn't become angry after a while, he launched in immediately with his first comment attacking the person who disagreed as a colossal idiot.

Ace from Ace of Spades HQ has a rule that he tries to follow and advises other bloggers to - and it's advice I think is very sound and I try to follow: do not argue in your comments section. I think especially if you are incapable of doing so in a calm, rational, and winsome manner you should avoid it at all costs. Paul clearly cannot. This is a good rule and I advise other bloggers to heed Ace's words.

For me, while there's information about Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing tragedy, this post is more about commenting and blogging. If you cannot restrain yourself from attacking your commenters, demeaning and abusing them, and making your point in your blog without arrogant, patronizing attacks, you are a pretty poor blogger and writer.

If especially you choose your conclusion before researching and launch into long diatribes, perhaps you ought to consider making any retirements you announce permanent.

Comments, Katrina