Last night, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin delivered his first “State of the City” address since Katrina. He used the opportunity to vigorously defend his administration and blast both the President of the United States and the Governor. Nagin referred to New Orleans as a sick patient that was making a miraculous recovery. Well, if New Orleans is the patient, Nagin is the doctor guilty of malpractice.
Last night proved once again, that Nagin will take responsibility for nothing. Concerning the sky-high murder rate, Nagin said it was a “blip.” Ladies and gentlemen, the murder capital of the nation has a serious blip problem.Throughout his address, Nagin continued to point fingers at everyone else and accept blame for none of the problems post Katrina. In fact, at the end of the speech, when Nagin abandoned his script, he said that “it’s not our fault”that the levees failed, that the water system is broken, that the road home plan is a mess and that “we were stranded and left.”Of course in the Mayor’s view, it is never his fault; everyone else is to blame for everything. Nagin only takes credit for successes
His emotional speech was popular with the crowd of city employees and police recruits. One Nagin partisan admonished me for attending, saying, “I can’t believe you are here after the horrible article you wrote about the Mayor.” Well, the truth hurts and this is still a free country. The speech was open to the public and not everyone was drinking the Kool-Aid.
Several members of the media who attended were disappointed. One commentator told me that the partisan nature of the speech upset her, since Nagin congratulated only the Democratic members of the congressional delegation and specifically praised the Congressional Black Caucus.
On the state level, Nagin blasted Blanco for abandoning the health care needs of New Orleans and for not placing more of an emphasis on the coastal areas in her record budget. He said that road home plan has been “misguided.” Nagin certainly has a valid point about the lack of help on both the state and federal levels. The President has not lived up to his commitments to New Orleans and Blanco is trying to spread the budget around the state and grow government instead of rebuilding the coastal parishes.
Despite the correctness of some of his complaints, Nagin is very misguided in his attempts to secure more help. It would be much better for Nagin to meet regularly with all members of the congressional delegation, both Republicans and Democrats, and work with them as a team to secure more federal dollars. On the state level, Nagin should be visiting Baton Rouge almost every day of the legislative session, working for the city and promoting a legislative agenda instead of traveling around the country to one conference after another. In the audience last night should have been members of the Louisiana Legislature, unfortunately, I did not see a single legislator in attendance. According to one long time observer of Louisiana politics, “Nagin should have chartered a bus and brought down the Louisiana Legislature to be his guests last night.”
Instead of reaching out to the legislature and the Governor, Nagin blasted them. Since the 2003 race for Governor, the relationship between Blanco and Nagin has been horrible. After last night’s speech, it will not be getting any better. By vilifying Bush, Nagin has certainly caused that once warm friendship to turn frosty.
Rumors continue to swirl around City Hall that Nagin will run for Governor this fall, in an effort to take his message of recovery and complaints statewide. If that happens, Nagin will soon realize that Louisiana voters have little appetite for a politician evading responsibility and pointing fingers at everyone else.
Last night was vintage Nagin, part preacher, part politician. To his political supporters, he will always be a polished orator and an inspiring leader, but to the vast majority of voters, Nagin is a political doctor guilty of malpractice, both for what he has done and has not done for the patient that is the City of New Orleans.
Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 8:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and Noon till 2 p.m. weekdays on several Louisiana radio stations. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.
nagin is very incompetent and venomous. i know of no one who supports him. he should be recalled and voted out asap. been to la. and nola 3 times in the last year. many old friends have moved away and many are still trying to decide from nola to houma on whether to move out of la. everything in nola except for the fr. quarter is in shambles. trash everywhere; the corridor from louis armstrong airport to downtown is filthy with trash, ditches, culverts, and so on. no new plantings, lights. what kind of message does this send to business men arriving by plane unless it is private and at another airport? the drive from nola out I-10 east is pitiful with no noticeable attemt to hide the damage with cleanup, fences, shrubs, etc. the streets in the garden dist. and uptown are horrible. more autos everywhere on the street and in yards. looks like montegut. uptown, residences are being vacated and left to rent to college and african americans, resulting in hell for the remaining homeowners. many will leave as well. i see no efforts anywhere to clean up. are there no citizen groups who can clean up the trash. it is so sad. dg
Written by dan gremillion
on 6/4/2007
TW i agree it is not fair that hard working people like you are being grouped with the welfare crowd
of louisiana.You and people like you are the ones who need help the most.But when the rest of the country see the media and our local politicians running around to the fema parks talking to people who in a booming economy are crying for more of a free ride it is giving them the outlook no one in Louisiana works.
Then when you add the fact from the governor to the mayor,they are blaming Bush and everyone else, because they can not do their jobs,that is giving them the impression no one in Louisiana can take responsibilty.Now i do know there are a lot of people like you that have tried to rebuild their lives in New Orleans but you are not getting the media coverage and i blame Ray Nagin and Blanco.Getting their picture taken with a lot of poor people for votes is more important than getting their picture taken with the people who are trying to rebuild on their on.Even when you at look at fact The Louisiana House overwhelmingly agreed Thursday to a record $29.6 billion budget but yet even they are not giving any more money to hurricane recovery,not even the road home program that they know is facing over 2 billion shortfall.If our leaders do not care enough to help rebuild New Orleans how can anyone expect the rest of the country to help..As far as insurance people they are acting just like the politicians who brought them into Louisiana and that is not caring about the people.Until we change our leaders,nothing is going to get any better for Louisiana.When our leaders are so greedy they do not care about the people do not expext anyone else to spend their money on louisiana.
Written by Susan
on 6/1/2007
And Sharon, one more thing. Even IF we get Road Home money (which is anybody's guess at this point) my wife are still putting in $60,000 of our own money into the house. Now admittedly, roughly half of that involves improvements that we've decided to add ourselves. And that $60K figure doesn't include the fact that we were underinsured on contents to about the tune of $25,000. Or that we lost two vehicles. But we're sucking that all up. So I am sick and tired of you sitting in your living room in Pensacola calling us here in Louisiana corrupt and lazy and the like, telling us we're all on the dole, waiting for a handout, etc. You don't know sh*t. Go visit a Florida politics website and praise Jeb Bush or something. Leave us in Louisiana alone.
Written by TW
on 6/1/2007
Sharon, you are really dim sometimes. Don't you get that these are adjustors working for huge national corporations, using software provided them by the head offices of these selfsame corporations? For the record, Allstate is headquartered in Northbrook, IL, and State Farm is headquartered in Bloomington, IL. So maybe this is an Illinois story? I'm kidding, of course, but my point is that this is NOT just a Louisiana story, and I don't know how anyone could read the TP article and come away thinking that it's just a Louisiana story. I am sure that when the courts look into this they are going to find out that these companies have been doing this for some time. And as the Ben Stein column points out, Bush's latest appointee to be Secretary of the Treasury wants to make it harder for states' attorneys general to prosecute CEOs for corporate malfeasance. It is the Republicans who are always repeating the mantra to "let the markets work" and "leave business alone" and "the marketplace knows better than the government" - this is the kind of crap you spill out on these pages all the time. The problem is that capitalism runs on greed, and unless you control that greed through the heavy hand of government, people do dishonest things to make a buck. And it's usually the Republicans who balk at punishing these folks. Why? Well, you figure that one out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that.
Written by TW
on 6/1/2007
Ms. Sharon Mounier: Certainly, office jumpers have to claim a "higher" reason and purpose for their actions, other than personal gain. It fits into the same realm of leadership as most exhibit-- blame someone else (in this case, God) for obvious shortfalls in personality, leadership, and integrity. "I wouldn't leave this post to run for another if God didn't move me to do so." If God, indeed, moves Nagin, and has moved Jindal to change offices, that, not Hurricane Katrina, is proof positive that He wishes to destroy Louisiana.
Written by Maxwell
on 6/1/2007
TW see how easily you turn it into "the kind of thing that happens when the Republicans are in charge". Who are these adjusters? And we can agree that anytime the Federal Government is "footing the tab" everyone gets in on the "its free money". The investigation will sort this out but I find it hard to believe that you think that the Republicans are to blame for this. The Democrats are in charge of Louisiana and have been forever. Even when there is a Republican Governor there is a Democratic Legislature. See how in the latest session they balk at taking any responsibility for fixing the States infrastucture. They are content to wait until every attempt is made to get more Federal Dollars to do it. Read the Times Picayune again this morning "State could be required to pitch in up to $1 billion for Road Home bailout. Interesting read. The rest of America is getting "sick and tired" of the belly aching and finger pointing coming from Louisiana and feel it is "high time" for you to carry some of the burden yourselves.
Written by Sharon
on 6/1/2007
Jeff, I thought it was just the late hour and that I was not reading what I thought I was reading properly. I had to check out your comments to make sure I read correctly. I couldn't agree with you more. I used to be a police officer in the city and I voted for Nagin the first time. I can't believe how he spins facts and how racist he has turned, or maybe he always was and just didn't show his true "colors" until after the storm. God Bless New Orleans and protect her. Sean
Written by Sean Kevany
on 6/1/2007
I'm glad that someone else see what I see about all the politicians jumping around in the political career ladder when they have just been recently elected back into office for a second term...Watch!!! Just you wait and see!!! They are going to use the "God" spill!!! God called them to do such thing!!! But did God really call them to make such lateral moves?!!! I hardly believe it because God is not the author of confusion....God doesn't call you to be a Congressman one day and then call you to be Governor the next day!!! THAT MENTALITY IS ONLY A "MAN" LEANING UNTO HIS OWN UNDERSTANDING!!!! God doesn't work that way so you can go and blame that on somebody else!!!!
Written by Sharon Mounier
on 6/1/2007
I could stomach some of Nagin's finger-pointing if he were actually doing something himself. But he's not. He reminds me of Aaron Brooks, smiling through disaster and letting nothing, nothing shake his inflated self-opinion.
I agree that the Mayor should be reaching out to the Legislature and the Gov. But perhaps he is afraid that if those magical dollars he's always saying are getting ready to flow actually did arrive, he'd have to do something smart with them. It's not at all clear that he's up to that challenge. He seems to believe that as long as he does nothing, he can do nothing wrong.
Written by David
on 5/31/2007
Nagin should be put into solitary confinement for 'masquerading as a human being' post mardi gras. This freakin' guy is nothing but a 'polished Al / Jesse' who will bring down the "CITY OF NEW ORLEANS" (and, I don't mean the train). And, I betcha these little trips he goes on are 'wall to wall' with 'feel good assorted mixed tricks & treats'...betcha. How do you guys stand this "Irrisponsible Freak"? IMHO, Nagin is just another self-righteous, racist, Nubian on a grandiose, self-satisfying Mother Goose mission to nowhere and will carry all down with him. He's reaching warp speed now while praying for a tail wind. I will get back with ya'll regarding how I really feel after I take my nerve medicine!
Written by JH
on 5/31/2007
Perhaps the mayor, governor AND the president should read the Chapter 1 excerpt from Lee Iacocca'a book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" It is available to read on any book selling web site as well as his own web site.
ENOUGH SAID
Written by Allie
on 5/31/2007
Pleases read the top article in today's Metro section of the TP. It is entitled "Council grades
N.O. on business". In the same way that Stacy Head says that New Orleans business owners
give the city "a grade of F minus in responding to their complaints and meeting their needs and
in the same way that Shelley Midura and Arnie Fielkow make some very pertinent points on
Nagin's administartion's inability to promote our economic development, we could give
the same evaluation of Nagin's State of the City. He also deserves an F minus in his lack
of understanding of the Criminal Justice System. When he referred to last weekend's rash of
murders as a blip and when he acknowledged the local federal authorities in general but not
by their proper names and when he did not mention David Vitter and Bobby Jindal as part of
the Members of Congress he complimented for helping New Orleans in our hour of need, I
knew, once more, that we made a huge mistake in re-electing Nagin. I am very glad I was
not at the WWII Museum. It would have been impossible for me to stand up and cheer.
Written by Pam
on 5/31/2007
For a guy that obviously didn't want to be reelected, he sure is spewing rhetoric for acceptance, not forgiveness, just acceptance. Shifted accountability is better than no accountability at all, right? Blame, blame, isn't a shame is not going to get New Orleans to the light again. The speech was high on self-service, low in public service. What if a flood, let alone another hurricane? The feds and state are filled with red tape help and I'm very skeptical of local leadership that wants to make it happen now, when as your editorial states he's not really in front of anyone's face to ensure things happen in our favor from the last tragedy, much less for future calamities. A speech of this calibur was better spent a year ago in my opinion.
Written by charlie
on 5/31/2007
Miss Sharon I agree, let me share with you something I read. It was in a Houston paper, and it was AWFUL! the quote was something like this "The City of Houston, as well as Dallas is getting tired of the Post Katrina New Orleans Squatters, that will not work" they quoted a figure of some 50,000 (NOLA)heads of household that were still unemployed, and were living on foods stamps, and welfare. Even though there were jobs to be had. They called the Katrina Refugees the WORST SCUM that was washed out of the sewer that was/is New Orleans. Sounds to me like our Western neighbor is ready to crack down and make them work or move on because they are talking about limiting their benefits causing them to move home, or at least elsewhere.
Written by Ole Jarhead
on 5/31/2007
Jeff,
I agree with you.
Written by Raymond Brady
on 5/31/2007
Jarhead, I read that article. I get emails all the time from people all over this country that have tried to help Katrina evacuees. They are all growing weary of their attitude that reeks of dependence on everyone but themselves. I try to explain my sincere belief that these people are so dependent on government in all forms that they are not capable of acting on their own. Sad but true. Then all the scandals involving fraud. Today the article that talked about adjusters who over claimed the flood damage because it was covered by the federal government. Just another black eye.
Written by Sharon
on 5/31/2007
The article is Insurers bilked flood program, suit says. It is in the Times Picayune.
Written by Sharon
on 5/31/2007
Sharon, the lawsuit against the insurance companies is not a black eye against Louisiana - the insurance companies (Allstate, State Farm, and others) are, of course, national companies, and they used different price scales for flood-damaged construction items vs. wind-damaged items, and in EVERY case, the flood-damaged items were more expensive to replace than they should be, and the wind-damaged items were priced below market value. The obvious reason why they did this is because the Federal government was picking up the tab for the flood damage, whereas they would have to pay the wind damage out of their own (deep) pockets. The lesson of this is not about Louisiana and its perceived corruption, but rather, about runaway, unregulated capitalism and corporate greed. In other words, the kind of things that happen when the Republicans are in charge. I hope the insurance companies get taken to the cleaners over this, those bastards - no slaps on the wrist this time.
Written by TW
on 5/31/2007
The Blame Game Pity Party continues in earnest. Politics as usual. Certainly no one is really surprised that the only praise went to Democrats and the Black Caucus. That is problem one and until someone drags the citizens kicking and screaming out of this mindset, NOTHING is going to happen to the good in New Orleans. New Orleans is coming back, are you? screams at you from billboards in the Florida Panhandle. I find this advertizedment premature. I don't think that New Orleans is really coming back anytime soon and who would want to go to a city that still has National Guard patroling the streets?
Written by Sharon
on 5/31/2007
I've always had a soft spot for Nagin. As a strong supporter of Bobby Jindal for Gov. I and my then wife were at Jindal's HQ downtown as the results slowly sunk in that Kathleen Blanco was the next Governor. A limo pulls up and Nagin with bodyguards get out. I walk up, shake his hand and remark, "you know he's lost". Nagin says, "This is a bad day for LA", walks upstairs, hugs Bobby, and says how disappointed he is, hopes Blanco, etc. etc.
My point is Nagin did not have to show up when he knew Jindal had lost, but he backed Bobby because he knew he was (by far) the best candidate for LA. future. Here was Nagin: A democratic black Major supporting a Republican for Governor. He caught a ton of flack for that and he stuck with it.
What happened post-Katrina?? He's a "choclate city" racist. His "foot in mouth disease" is obvious, but we are looking for leadership in these hard times, and it's not coming from the Major's Office. Aside from the partisan racial comments leading to his re-election, why is he so silent in leading/planning the future of NO?? Perhaps there is some Psych/babble explanation. This man has missed an opportunity to be "Great". But then there is Murphy's Law.
My suggestion is to take a page from the Vietnamese in NO East. Screw the Govt., do it ourselves.
Written by Mr. Magoo
on 5/31/2007
Not my fault i can not do my job again speech.President Bush should be down here running the city of New Orleans,the state of louisiana.Heck we just ran for the jobs and we never said we could do the jobs.My only problem with the insurance is most of our insurance Commissioners like Jim Brown, Sherman Bernard, Doug Green have been jailed.But being Louisiana we should be proud of having so many insurance commissioners in jail and i would even bet that has lowered our premiums and helped raise our coverage,Yeah right.How much longer can we afford the good old boys way of doing things.Vote Bobby Jindal and give Louisiana hope for a future.
Written by Susan
on 5/31/2007
Nagin running for Governor of Louisiana? That sounds like something he would do... abandon the city for a better position. Really responsible. Sounds like what Bobby Jindal is doing. Forget responsibility to serve the public in an already-elected public office, always think about personal gain and power hunger. Both have proven to be mediocre leaders; both have shown themselves to be self-promoters with little regard for anyone but themselves. Ungracious and unrelenting in pointing fingers, always trying to divert attention from themselves, unless that attention has some sort of public relations benefit. Both carry little credibility in their respective offices; both have fanatical, seemingly brainwashed (or, perhaps, brain dead) followers that "hear no evil" and "see no evil." USELESS.
Written by Maxwell
on 5/31/2007
This is a bit off-topic, but since I'm on a tear about corporate corruption and greed, I thought I'd post some excerpts from reliably conservative columnist/actor Ben Stein regarding our current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr.: *****TRUTH be told, I had been wondering why Henry M. Paulson Jr., previously top dog at the Goldman Sachs Group — already a power, already a wealthy man — would have wanted to be Treasury secretary.... I am sure much of what motivated him was his wish to be a good citizen and to do the civic duty of a successful, capable man. But he might have also been moved by the wish to do some good for his old pals on Wall Street. This is what's going through my mind as I read about the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an "unofficial" panel of concerned citizens; its creation in September was disclosed in an announcement featuring kind and encouraging words from the selfsame Mr. Paulson, in his role as the secretary of the Treasury.
This committee, to be headed by a distinguished professor of law at Harvard — no, not the noted anti-establishment law professor Duncan Kennedy, but Hal S. Scott — will study whether securities regulation and litigation that actually protect shareholders are harming American "competitiveness," which Mr. Paulson has said is an important issue for him.
There are big names on this commission: R. Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and now dean of the Columbia Business School, and John L. Thornton, chairman of the Brookings Institution and a former president of Goldman Sachs. (There it is again, the real government of the United States.) There are also heads of big financial firms, manufacturers, and — now, this is a shock — accounting firms.
They are going to study, among other issues, whether having private shareholder suits against corporations that defraud stockholders should really be allowed under Section 10b of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; whether state attorneys general like Eliot Spitzer of New York, the best friend the American stockholder has had in at least 50 years, should be allowed to bring lawsuits against corporate defendants in securities cases; whether accounting firms should be held liable when they don't catch frauds of companies they are auditing; and whether corporate officers who have committed fraud are being treated too harshly under criminal laws.
When I follow this subject, my mind goes back to three little things. First, I remember my beloved genius economics professor, C. Lowell Harriss, at Columbia, saying in 1963, "When you say 'corporations' you should be thinking 'the widows and orphans who actually own the stock and the company.'"***** There's more, if you're inclined to read it, at: http://josephbutson.com/JosephButson/nfblog/?page_id=66
Last night, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin delivered his first “State of the City” address since Katrina. He used the opportunity to vigorously defend his administration and blast both the President of the 
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