Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Ray Nagin, Compassionate Mayor

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, needs to shut up. Nagin had the following to say in an interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, MS. From CNN.com:

"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen."

Nagin is upset because Black Hawk helicopters had been diverted from dropping sandbags to attempt to repair a levee breech to rescue operations.

OK, let me see if I can put this in a language Nagin can understand.

As mayor of a city, you don't let your fricking citizens die in the fricking streets so that you can chase a fricking pipedream attempt to fricking plug a breach in a fricking levee.

Nagin went on to say:

"I had laid out like an eight-week to ten-week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said.

"That four weeks is going to stop all commerce in the city of New Orleans. It also impacts the nation, because no domestic oil production will happen in southeast Louisiana."

OK, that was never going to happen. It will take six to eight months minimum to drain the city and clear debris so that reconstruction can even begin. It will also cost about ten times the numbers kicked around so far to rebuild the city, somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 billion.

In fact, it might not be a woman named Cindy that ends the Iraq War, but one named Katrina. The Bush administration may have a decision to make. They can chase Bush's fricking pipedream in Iraq, or throw away an American city. I don't see how we can do both.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are in fine shape we will just use the surplus Bush inherited.

Oh wait... Bush gave that away to the rich in tax cuts as proven by th the latest Census report on poverty.

Anonymous said...

Side note:

My wife has a friend stranded in New Orleans. She has spent the last 2 nights sleeping in a walkway at a mall. She said that the Superdome is a horror story that the word down there is that gun violence and even a suicide has been reported.

She said their life savior has been a crank radio used for camping somebody had with them. Mental note: buy one of these radios.

Phlip said...

I've been thinking of getting one of those radios for a while. There was a suicide at the Superdome, jumper from the rafters.