nagin turns on blanco

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 8:51am

i would not want to bring an unpopular idea to a vote at a city council meeting against this man. but after what's happened to his city, i think he showed great restraint in not body slamming li'l soledad.
nagin says, ya better have a friggin' ax

[lildogs]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 10:36am

is there a transcript of this somewhere papa? i'm at work and can't play this

[Marquise]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 10:47am

ooooooooooooh this is gon' get uuuuuuuugly. the mayor and the gov'na gonna be goin' at it now.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 11:22am

it's about 2/3 of the way through the transcript, lil. my money's on the mayor, marquise. that's one bad hush yo mouth.
cnn transcript

[lildogs]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 11:50am

Thanks, papa...

[eyeonbroadway]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 12:24pm

I knew I liked this guy the moment he told everyone to "get off your asses and get something done" a few days ago. When he was getting arguments about what FEMA would pay for and what they wouldn't he basically said "screw it" I'LL pay for it and we'll figure out the red tape later. That's the difference between a leader and a politician.
Updated On: 9/6/05 at 12:24 PM

[Yawper]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 3:04pm

From the CNN transcript:

"(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: There are people who say your evacuation plan, obviously in hindsight, was disastrous.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Which one?

S. O'BRIEN: Your evacuation plan before -- when you put people into the Superdome. It wasn't thought out. You got 20,000 people in there. And that you bear the brunt of the blame for some of this, a large chunk of it.

NAGIN: Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens.

And I don't know what else I could do, other than to tell them that it's a mandatory evacuation. And if they stayed, make sure you have a frigging ax in your home, where you can bust out the roof just in case the water starts flowing.

And as a last resort, once this thing is above a category 3, there are no buildings in this city to withstand a category 3, a category 4 or a category 5 storm, other than the Superdome. That's where we sent people as a shelter of last resort. When that filled up, we sent them to the Convention Center. Now, you tell me what else we could have done."
-----

Last year there was an eight day exercise involving FEMA, the State of Louisiana, the City of New Orleans, and others, addressing a scenario almost identical to Hurricane Katrina. On the first day only one representative from the City of New Orleans showed up. If the mayor and his buddies had taken things a little more seriously they might have at least had some ideas, if not answers, these 14 months later.
Hurricane Pam exercise

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 9:09pm

yawp that kind of sliming is typical of the gop response and you should be ashamed of even mentioning it. resposibility for this tragedy rests on dubya's shoulders and his alone. if nothing else, the last week on the board should have taught you that.

[Yawper]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 9:41pm

and I'll say again - I'm totally non-partisan, I'm not registered for any particular party, I'm just calling things as I see them - I challenge you to do the same

(I live in a blue state if that makes any difference to you)

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 9:44pm

"Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take."

Oh. If only the current administration in Washington, which I will refer to as The Party from now on, could ever once ever in its mealy mouthed, back-pedaling life, utter a statement such as that.

Meanwhile, according to the AP, we can get a very VERY clear indication of what The Party's priorities were all along:

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

F-ing great, that's what I say.


Link

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 9:57pm

hey c'mon, if those floaters need anything, it's pr.

**as part of a longstanding trdition with me, not to cesor myself or my commets, i'll let that go up, with the proviso, that while pr is not what anyone needs right now, it's not a stretch to think that folks would be thinking about trying to put the best face on things. ok, there's no defense of that. fire away.**

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 10:00pm

**I don't have to, you know you done wrong**

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 10:03pm

i defer to bj thomas: hey, a'won't ya play another somebody done somebody wrong song...

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/6/05 at 10:06pm

No wonder they couldn't implement the evacuation plan. It's typed in a 6 point font.


The Document Nobody Read