Nagin: Feds would’ve moved quicker if Katrina hit Orange County or South Beach
posted at 8:55 pm on August 18, 2006 by Allahpundit
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More chocolate thunder. Not newsworthy: the fact that he’s a moron. Somewhat newsworthy: he said it to the annual conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. This is the second time now that he’s used an appearance before a mostly black audience as an excuse to stoop to racial demagoguery: the infamous remark about “chocolate city” was made during an MLK Day celebration last year.
As was Hillary’s “and you know what I’m talking about” crack re: the GOP running the House like a “plantation.” MLK Day again, this time at a black church.
Then there’s Reverend Al. Not Sharpton; the other one. If you’ve never seen clips from his debate with Bill Bradley at the Apollo Theater in 2000, you really missed out. No race-baiting in this case, just racial caricature. Here’s a quote from the transcript that captures the flavor. Or, as Al would say were he addressing a black audience, “flava”:
If you entrust me with the presidency, the first Civil Rights Act of the 21st century will be a national law outlawing racial profiling. I think that we have to make certain that in this country not only will driving while black never be allowed to be a crime, but we just… we have to say that we are going to become one people, and prevent these incidents, partly by putting as much energy into education as we do into incarceration. (Cheers and applause)
Vintage Jesse. Not quite chocolate, but certainly white chocolate.
It so happens that the comments about Jews, Koreans, and Arabs that just got Andrew Young fired from his gig at Wal-Mart were made to the Los Angeles Sentinel, an influential black newspaper. So here’s the question: do Nagin, Hillary et al. genuinely believe this crap but suppress it until they have an audience whose perceived “authenticity” gives them license to vent? I.e., are these Kinsleyan gaffes? Or are they simply examples of politicians telling a group what they think it wants to hear, whether or not they themselves actually believe it?
I’m persuadable either way.
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Betting against this explanation -
is always a bad idea.
The Apologist on August 18, 2006 at 9:08 PM
As the wise white “cracker” Forrest Gump would say, “Stupid is as stupid does”
mimi on August 18, 2006 at 9:15 PM
- Nagin said the hurricane “exposed the soft underbelly of America as it relates to dealing with race and class.”
No, it exposed his incompentency as a mayor and how destructive dependency on welfare can be.
However, the people voted this boob back into office, they deserve whatever they get from the “chocolate boob”.
darwin on August 18, 2006 at 9:25 PM
New Orleans Residents would have been saved if a Republican had been in charge…
And how the Hell Count Chocula got re-elected is beyond me…but then again it isn’t out of the ordinary for Dead People to vote for Democrats…and since he had a big hand in killing about 1000..that just boosts his voting block.
havok on August 18, 2006 at 9:27 PM
Ugh, it’s Kanye West, politician style.
CR UVa on August 18, 2006 at 9:31 PM
It’s all about the buses, Mayor Nagin. Until you answer why there were dozens of them within a mile of the Superdome, and you didn’t use a single one of them to move anyone to safety but instead left them to get flooded, you’re just not worth listening to.
Bryan on August 18, 2006 at 9:52 PM
Nagin is an idiot. I can still vividly remember watching the Weather Channel about 2 days before Katrina landfall. TWC and the hurricane center were begging people to leave as at the time Kat was a class 5 cane. Nagin had a press conference and TWC covered it. I could have sworn Nagin had just finished taking a few bong hits. He was just as calm as he could be, no urgency, :Hey y’all, we got this little storm thing happening headed our way, y’all might want to evacuate cause they tellin me it’s gonna get bad here. TWC was showing models of the new Orleans city profile and sea level position and how it was going to flood, not might flood, it was going to happen. Nagin and his briliant Governor Blanco were afraid to declare a state of emergency out of fear of public perceptions.
It is amazing to me that Katrina’s actual landfall and most destructive force was in the Gulf coast of Mississippi. total and complete destruction of that area. And there is no coverage of it. Those people never complained. When the storm passed, they assessed the damage and started rebuilding, neighbor helping neighbor, they weren’t about the federal handout, they were about rebuilding their community.
It boggles the mind how the black community continues to allow its leadership to keep them down. People like Bill Cosby that tell them to help themselves get shouted down while Sharpton and McKinney who are promoting hate get lifted up.
Sweaty Deacon on August 18, 2006 at 10:05 PM
For starters, I don’t think you can lump them together that way. Nagin will continue to play the same tune–”it’s the Feds’ fault, not mine”–until he dies, and it’s a goldmine for him because it deflects the blame AND tells his black supporters what he thinks they want to hear. And he probably believes it. Trifecta.
And the more I think about it, I don’t think your two categories are necessarily distinct from each other. Hillary and Gore certainly seem to fall into both. They think blacks want to be told that they’re still being oppressed, so they do it, but I have no problem thinking they also believe it themselves. I don’t even think they’re “gaffes;” Biden’s was a gaffe. HRC and Algore are just following the PC Party Line.
Anwyn on August 18, 2006 at 10:22 PM
That one gets my vote.
BTW, doesn’t one have to engage in racial profiling (of the audience) in order to pre-gauge that said audience will be receptive to a speech denouncing racial profiling?
speed647 on August 18, 2006 at 10:51 PM
Well this Cracker won’t spend any money in NOLA until Nagin is no longer the Mayor.
Catie96706 on August 18, 2006 at 11:08 PM
I remember during Clinton’s days, the whitest place in the country, Grand Forks, North Dakota, flooded and no one even thought about the feds.
Citizens were filling sand bags trying to hold back the water and after the flood wiped out the city, the McDonalds heiress gave a bunch of money to them and that was that.
Perchant on August 18, 2006 at 11:15 PM
That makes me feel better about all those Quarter Pounders I’ve eaten.
speed647 on August 18, 2006 at 11:19 PM
I do my part to unseat the dynamic duo.
Theworldisnotenough on August 19, 2006 at 12:47 AM
Haven’t we already established the following:
- It was in NOLA’s own evacuation plan to use school and city buses to evacuate people. Nagin chose not to.
- Bush asked them to issue a mandatory evacuation at least once (but I think two or three times). They chose not to, and others were partying at the bars still hours before the storm came in. I’ll never forget Shep asking people questions like “you know this huge Hurricane is coming, why are you still here” and one guy answering “none of your fu**ing business!” So there were a lot of idiots who CHOSE to stay, just like they always do in any natural disaster. I understand the “it’s my home, and I’m not going anywhere” mentality, but don’t race bait when you made your own decision.
- Katrina was only a category 3 at landfall, and NOLA actually only experienced between category 1 and 2 conditions.
- My own personal issue is the whole “Katrina” label, when what happened was actually a result of faulty levees, NOT a devastating storm… and even the failed levees weren’t a result of the massive category 5 everyone thinks hit.
- The levees should have held. No one warned about breaching/breaking levees. Everyone talked about overtopping which would have caused flooding, but nothing near what happened when the levees broke. The levees were supposed to be able to handle category 3 conditions according to the corps. of engineers, which is why overtopping was minimal. But there were design and construction flaws that caused the levees to break. No one warned about this, even in the case of a category 5… the concern was massive storm surge overtopping the levees if such a storm hit.. but again, a MUCH weaker storm did.
- Blanco failed to ask for the National Guard in a timely fashion which she must do.
- Blanco spent a lot of time in front of cameras playing the blame game, while the Red Cross sat on the outskirts of the city with a convoy of supplies. Blanco told them not to enter because she didn’t want to create a magnet at the Superdome.
- etc. etc. etc. (insert everything the MSM won’t report here)
Here’s the bottom line though… What was the outrage over? Not over broken levees, but about all these poor
refugeesevacuees stranded. Why were they stranded? Because local and state officials failed to act.I wish we could do simulation on what would have happened if the state and local officials called for a mandatory evacuation a few days before landfall, used their buses to evacuate everyone (of course there would be some who would refuse to leave still though)… Then the outrage would have been over the levees, but it would have been WAY toned down from Geraldo and Shep bawling on TV about lying reports of bodies piling up at the Dome, etc.
But there is a local and state government set up for a reason, to be first responders, etc. When we all saw what the incompetence of the local officials had caused, a normal FEMA operation was no longer doable. By that time the city was in chaos and in it’s condition there was no way for any fast evacuation or anything like that. Had that been planned for, it could have been done. Such a blunder by local and state people couldn’t have been predicted (unless you saw the D’s next to their names), so the Feds were left looking like clueless a-holes. You could argue that the feds needed to prepare for the worst and for incompetant local officials, but that doesn’t excuse who was truly at fault here.
RightWinged on August 19, 2006 at 1:33 AM
by the way, if anyone didn’t keep up and needs sourcing on any of that, I do have it all as I posted about it all earlier this year, particularly around the “Bush was warned the levees would break” crap.
RightWinged on August 19, 2006 at 1:35 AM
The United States government has never, ever in any disaster been set up to be the “first” responder. 90% of the blame for any poor responce lies with the City (Nagin)
and the State (Blanco).
gary on August 19, 2006 at 2:27 AM
and don’t forget Landrieu.
gary on August 19, 2006 at 2:28 AM
exactly Gary
RightWinged on August 19, 2006 at 2:50 AM
Typical liberal response when a cover is needed to keep the real story out of the discussion. When in New Orleans, right?
BTW, it would be nice if we had a preview option here. ;o)
DannoJyd on August 19, 2006 at 2:57 AM
Ray Nagin is sometimes lampooned by members of his own party as “Ray Reagan.” To judge from the article, Mayor Nagin’s speech included criticism of regulation, federal and state intrusion into local affairs, and social engineering by governments at the expense of individual people. Nagin has faults that are worth noting, but I think it’s hasty to lump him in with Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Andrew Young.
Kralizec on August 19, 2006 at 3:33 AM
Kralizec, all I have to say about that attempted defense (for lack of a better word) of Nagin is “buses” and “chocolate city”.
RightWinged on August 19, 2006 at 4:42 AM
RightWinged, your topics are not my topic. I didn’t bother to take shots at Mayor Nagin over “buses” and “chocolate city,” because I have people to do that for me. I raised some different points in connection with Mayor Nagin partly because I’m bored with the usual Nagin-related topics. Moreover, the reason my remarks don’t look like a very good defense of Nagin is precisely that I didn’t make them in order to defend him from your critiques (”for lack of a better word”). My point is that after one is finished with the topic of his opinions on race and race relations, one is in a position to observe unrelated features of his political opinions that may cause one to set him apart from many of the other Democrats.
Kralizec on August 19, 2006 at 6:47 AM
Nagin and the folks who voted for him
“Dumb and Dumber”
robo on August 19, 2006 at 7:25 AM
Louisiana citizen here. The outrage about the bus story (locally) is because at election time, these same buses are used to bring the same ppl you saw at the superdome to the polling places. Tells you a lot about our politicians’ true motivations.
lsutiger on August 19, 2006 at 10:56 AM
Kralizec your point is lacking in that Nagin’s actions do not stand up to any sort of appraisel. He can say anything he wants, he failed when his city needed him the most.
JasonG on August 19, 2006 at 11:13 AM
Living in Atlanta I can tell you they believe it. During the Rodney King riots there was a family of Koreans who owned a store in a very bad part of town. It was BESEIGED and the Police REFUSED to go in and help them. The family took refuge on the roof of the building when the mob broke into the store and began rampaging, looting and threatening them. The news helicopters captured the entire thing. This was a family who was NOT known to be rip-offs and who had worked with the community for years extending credit and employing people. But because they werent black, they were the enemy that day and “deserved” to be looted.
I like Andrew Young as a person. I think he has a quiet dignity that is refreshing BUT he isnt above having prejudices reinforced daily by the Jesses and Sharptons.
labwrs on August 19, 2006 at 11:45 AM
lsutiger,
We were all mystified that Sista Mary, the Queen and Ray didn’t think to “drag and drop” to safety, since they successfully “drag and drop” at the polls. A parade through the Lower 9th Ward, with offers of red beans and rice, beer and dollars, would have done the trick.
Then again, prior to Katrina landfall, I well-remember a reporter asked Ray about using school buses. Ray, in a huffy tone, answered that the prospective evacuees were adults, not children, deserving of coaches and not school buses. Hmmm… The only coaches I see on election days belong to out-of-state operatives.
Tulane Greenie from CenLA
Aunt B on August 19, 2006 at 12:07 PM
If Katrina had hit South Beach or Orange County, I’d dare say the state would be prepared enough that the Feds would not have to intervene.
Muslihoon on August 19, 2006 at 12:56 PM
A little oversimplified, but that pretty much sums it up Muslihoon. It wouldn’t have had to be a primarily FEMA operation though. Competant local and state government would have handled almost everything and FEMA would, as usual, come in to help organize rescue and relief efforts. Not have to clean up a mess they were unprepared to deal with, after given Nagin/Blanco too much credit… assuming they weren’t the biggest POSs in the country.
RightWinged on August 19, 2006 at 3:34 PM
Thank you for the clarification and details, RightWinged!
Muslihoon on August 19, 2006 at 5:50 PM
Setting Ray Nagin completely aside now, JasonG, your notion that words don’t matter puts you on the wrong side–with the Left, animals, and plants.
Kralizec on August 20, 2006 at 12:35 AM
Time to reprise this memorable Saturday Night Live satire of Nagin, Jackson and Hillary about race baiting and pandering.
docdave on August 20, 2006 at 10:01 AM
After Nagin was re-elected I & family threw up our hands to donating there. for reasons, Nagin said it all…
mimi on August 20, 2006 at 6:19 PM