Radio interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin

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FWIW, CNN said they will play the interview in its entirety within the next 30 minutes (current time is 9:07am).
 
I'm a Bush supporter, but I must confess.... this entire situation rattled me to the bone! Bush said " results are unacceptable". Ya think?!?!?!
I support the NO Mayor 100%, and after listening to the NO Mayor, I am seething mad. How could this happen in the USA? I'm so frustrated and angry and I feel so helpless. UnF*@%king believable!!!
I'm going to spend the rest of my day e-mailing Congressman.
 
I support the NO Mayor 100%, and after listening to the NO Mayor, I am seething mad.
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Yes, he is quite good at passing the buck. Cry and scream enough and many people will fall for any charade.
 
Truth is, there are ALOT of people that deserve blame. Is Bush among them? Probably. Is the Mayor among them? Probably. Is the Governor of Lousiana among them? Probably. I seriously wonder if it was logistically possible to evacuate all of the New Orleans metro in the time they had... I seriously don't know if they could have mustered sufficient mass transit to get everyone who had no vehicle (something like 1 out of 6 in the city of New Orleans) out of the city...

I think at this point, the Mayor is passing on the frustration and anger of his constituents. Yes, there were quite a few that were idiots, who decided to stay despite the warnings, but there were also many who stayed behind to be with family who were unable to leave... to stay with the elderly and infirm that couldn't evacuate.
 
I support the NO Mayor 100%, and after listening to the NO Mayor, I am seething mad.
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Yes, he is quite good at passing the buck. Cry and scream enough and many people will fall for any charade.
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I can't believe you are accusing him of putting on an act. I hope I misunderstood what you meant.

I listened to the interview and I feel the exact same way he does. I am sure there are many others that do also. I think he's the only politician who's even reacted appropriately to this atrocity.
 
I can't believe you are accusing him of putting on an act. I hope I misunderstood what you meant.
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Yes, you did. It wasn't an act. It was genuine childishness. He F'd up and now he's going to throw a temper tantrum about it and blame everybody else. He's genuinely upset alright. Upset that he failed so miserably that people died and he might not be re-elected.

I think he's the only politician who's even reacted appropriately to this atrocity.
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He created the atrocity. Reacting "appropriately" is the least he can do.
 
New Orleans doesn't have its own army, nor does any other city in the United States. What it really comes down to is the fact that once disaster struck, personnel needed to be deployed immediately to the areas affected. This has not happened yet and we have now surpassed the five day mark. If Nagin could deploy troops, he would; he has very little control of the situation and the higher-ups are not doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. What more can Nagin do using only the funds allotted to the City of New Orleans?
 
What more can Nagin do using only the funds allotted to the City of New Orleans?
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Request the needed help in a timely manner. He didn't. People died. More people are dying.

It is not the function of the federal government to run his city for him. It is their responsibility only to provide him the resources to do so. And until he requests them, they cannot do so. That hesitation to act on his part created the tragedy we now see.
 
I disagree w/ Rob Davis's point-of-view and his judgemental attitude on this thread and others. So, rather than engage and get irritated, I instead choose not to read any more posts by Mr. Rob Davis.
 
Request the needed help in a timely manner. He didn't. People died. More people are dying.
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What are you talking about?!? He's been asking for help for days; patiently at first, now demanding answers as to why his city has seen nothing? The first real aid arrived today, Friday September 2nd, and Kat made landfall on Monday. How do you condemn the mayor for his 'inaction' when his pleas for help fell upon deaf ears? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that when tens of thousands of Americans are suddenly thrust into a situation where their lives have collapsed around them, they need help. The president and all of congress (and Mike Fu*king Brown) get CNN/Fox News/MSNBC...whatever...when they see dead bodies floating in the streets and people starving and withering in the heat, what did they do? They were told to 'be patient.' Give me a fu*king break, the last thing these people have is time...if Bush had a vacation home in New Orleans it would've taken a sh!t-ton less time to get this ball rolling.

EDIT:
I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/bus...a.ap/index.html
 
maybe all the help that has finally arriving now, could have started to be organised before the hurricane made landfall, knowing that the predictions were for catastrophic results, and so the help could have been lined up and waiting to enter as soon as the wind and rain died down..
easy to say that in hindsight though I guess.
 
The issue with the mayor is this. They have known for years what would happen WHEN a cat4-5 hit NO and they had no plans on what to do even though they knew 25% of the city did not have the means to leave. they didnt have central shelters with food and water prepared or even thought of. It was a lack of planning that has cost so many lives. The federal government agencies respond to disasters after they happen, It is up to local and state agencies to plan ahead of time. the Feds were already mobilizing before Katrina even hit and if the mayor and the local EM had done their job not near as many would have died.

I am a member of our local Emergency Management and we have contingency plans for a multitude of situations including tornado strikes or an "incident" at Pantex Nuclear facility. Our EM spend most of its time planning for disasters which is what EM was created for. NO and its officials dropped the ball big time. Anybodoy in Em knows that you have to be prepared to be cut off from relief for days and stock up and prepare accordingly.
 
When you see people defending this federal response, you have to admit that there's no point in trying to exchange ideas with them. They would defend this government no matter what happens or to whom, unless it happens to them of course. There is no set of circumstances under which they would not post the same things. They will never surprise you. The lack of shame required to blame (1) the victims themselves, and (2) the leader of a gutted, ruined city should demonstrate that the devotion of the apologists is fanatical. They don’t apply critical thinking. What we call all see with our eyes does not influence their thinking. It is set in stone!

There will be a day of reckoning, and those who know in their bones that government failed us (at all levels---local, federal, and state), must remember these moments for a time when your voices will be called upon.

If anything is obvious in this fog of war it is that only the federal government had the power and might to handle the utter desolation of a massive American city. We all know that. Look at what happened today. When a convoy of heavily armed combat troops rolled into New Orleans, with a cigar-chomping general officer in the lead truck who described his Iraq veterans as "proficient in the use of lethal force," did any of the armed gangs take them on? Hell no!

Did those armed thugs show the same fear of the N.O.P.D.? Of course not! They quickly surmised that NOPD was outmanned, outgunned, and without supplies. They won't be so brazen with the infantry. They'll run for cover, and if we're all lucky they will die of disease and dysentery within a few days.

Make no mistake, only the US government can project this kind of force. Only George W Bush can announce himself as the supreme warlord on the block without ambiguity. He needed to do it sooner, but I'm grateful that he did it today.

We don't have to convince the most disingenuous among us of this. Their agenda isn’t to make sure these people are saved, or even well-served. That’s up to the rest of us.
 
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