New Orleans Mayor is Mad

New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin is calling for the president to get to New Orleans in no uncertain terms....

Here is a paraphrase of what he said:

"I want the fucking president to get down here right now! He flew over in Air Force One - and what the fuck good does that do? I want the fucking military down here! I know I¹m going to lose my fucking job and I don¹t fucking care, because this place is a fucking jungle......"

The president of Jefferson Parrish spoke up:

"the U.S. is at war with itself, and we surrender. The U.S. can help all the countries in the world, but can't help the city of New Orleans...."

Both of these statements were allegedly made in a radio interview where both were violently angry. 

Here's my issue with this.  It doesn't seem that the mayor is taking any responsibility for any of this.  New Orleans was a city over wrought with gangs and crime.  The local authorities, including the Mayor, didn't take the threat of Katrina seriously until it was too late due to the numerous recent threats of hurricanes this season. 

So lets put these aspects together...

Gangs running free + existing high crime rate + late local government response + Katrina = what the hell did you expect?

The situation is way out of control.  Children are being raped.  People who have gone down there to help and rescue survivors are being shot at by snipers.  Police officers are being shot by these animals. 

So the mayor wants the "fucking military" down there now...  I couldn't agree more. 

Congress needs to declare marshal law and these criminals need to be shot on sight.  No questions asked.  And when it's all said and done... there should be no complaints from the Mayor about the response of force from the military because they are in the business of killing people and they are damn good at it.

Hat tip:  Punditeria

Michelle Malkin talks more about the "Blame Game".

Comments

[dr wnc]

And with marshal law the removal of the Mayor.
Along, with reviews of the US goverment actions, detailed reviews are needed of the state and local goverment, because the failure started at this level and snowballed.
One question we may need to ask, what impact has the 24/7 coverage, along with instant internet reports had in highlighting the response to this compared to the response in the past. Could we be seeing, the same level as before which is now highlighted? or is this situation unique?

[Matt Hurley]

Ray Nagin is an @$$clown. There is no need for that sort of talk from public official. Wanna be angry? Fine. But this sort of nonsense does NOTHING to alleviate the problem. I hope he feels better. Because his actions did NOTHING to help the situation.

[Lisa]

DR... good point.

Matt...

Hey babe, we're back to agreeing. What a way to start the weekend.

I'm watching the briefing of the president in the hanger right now... he ain't happy.

[Chris]

Absolutely agree that when this is over we need to find out who is responsible for bad decisions so it doesn't happen again...from the top to the bottom--but this is the NAtional Response Plan in effect and it is seriously lacking--imagine if it had been a terrorist attack with no warning...the National Response Pln needs to be fixed now--oh and the bad guys now know it sucks so if they have the where with all to strike from their perspective--now would be a good time...

[Matt Hurley]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but government (at any level) isn't really in the business of doing things right. They are supposed to be, but they aren't. The lesson of all of this ought to be remembered the next time we all seea smiling politician extending his or her hand out asking for our vote.

Granted, people in government are making Big Decisions...but they are screwing quite a few of them up Big Time.

Having said all that...there is a great deal of difference between a natural disaster and a terrorist attack. The response to a natural disaster should be coordinated locally. The response to a terrorist attack should be coordinated nationally.

...of course, none of that effects the first responders who are on the scene right now getting shot at because some people forgot that they were Americans...

[Chris]

They have the authority to shoot to kill if necessary. Shoot them and keep shooting them until they decide to stop...

[dr wnc]

Matt,
Excellent...post on the goverment and the situation.
My opinion... this is why the federal goverment should be as small as possible, with local officials state, county(parish) and city being the point.
Federalism with a strong but not large central goverment.

[Matt Hurley]

Re: "They have the authority to shoot to kill if necessary. Shoot them and keep shooting them until they decide to stop..."

ME: That's a great idea. One a support entirely. What happens when the Rev. Jackson starts mouthing off? How about when some scum sucking trial lawyer like John Edwards files a lawsuit?

[Lisa]

Screw Rev. Jackson and screw John Edwards. If Congress declared marshal law... that issue would be moot.

[Matt Hurley]

Back to that @$$clown Nagin for a minute.

Jeb Bush had busses lined up ready to go if Katrina had hit Florida. What did they do in LA? What did @$$clown-in-Chief Nagin do?

This...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015

Nagin kiss my @$$...and you can quote me on that.

[dr wnc]

Why is race involved?
By the numbers, if 67% of the NO population and another 5% is Hispanic. then...
If the people who could not get out were 100,000 people...the would equate to 72,000 non-whites compared to 23,000 whites left in the city by the numbers alone.
On TV, what are the chances of seeing one race over another?
4:1 to seeing Blacks to whites.
I realize this is by the numbers but it points to the "baiting" that is occuring on some news stations already. The black and white situation existed before the hurricane and appears to be the same now.

[Rita]

Hey, shoot Jesse Jackson..just say you thought he was a looter and change his shoes to brand new Nikes...

[Lisa]

The Congressional Black Caucus is already ranting and raving about the response. I don't see any of them doing anything about organizing relief efforts... all I see is bitching.. bitching.. bitching.

Maybe they should get up off their asses, shut up and do something.

[Matt Hurley]

Lisa, Lisa, Lisa...you don't honestly expect Congress critters to actually, you know, DO SOMETHING, do you? Certainly not those chronic complainers in the CBC...

[Matt Hurley]

Sorry to keep ragging on Nagin, but I'm just now hearing audio clips of this @$$clown on talk radio...@$$clown-in-Chief Nagin is trying to blame the POTUS and/or the governor for the presence of drug abusers in his town. Excuse me, @$$clown, but what the $%^& have you been doing for the last three years you were $%^&ing MAYOR??? APPARENTLY MAYOR @$$CLOWN WAS TOO BUSY COLLECTING BEADS...

For the record, NOW I'm pissed off...

[Rita]

Wow, and the people in the Asia disaster were a lot poorer then these people. Come on, let's just help those that need help, shoot those that do the looting, and use the Mayor to block up the hole in the broken barrier.

[Chris]

wow--violent---i'm outta here

:)

[Matt Hurley]

Remember, I'm a lover, not a fighter...

[Nurse Judy]

Rita:
Ditto.

[Don Adams]

I know I'm late to this party, but I betcha if Rudy Giuliani were mayor of New Orleans more would have gotten done.
Also, I posted a few words on the root cause of the mess in our inner cities at http://www.mdbarks.com which will probably be inflamatory to some but I sincerely believe that political correctness is the culprit.

[Stephen]

I feel compelled to state (again) that looting is not the problem; violence is. Consistent conflation of looter and shooter is overly simplistic and irresponsible. I certainly hope that none of you want to see three shots from a Guardsman's rifle "take out" somebody who's just looking for clean water. Also, declaring martial law is an executive function, not a legislative process, and would serve no purpose in this case. You'd have to have adequate troop strength to enforce it and a credible military authority to responsibility for the situation on the ground. That would just waste time.

For those who say this is not the federal government's role, it is precisely when local infrastructure is obliterated that national resources become important. Every county shouldn't have to stockpile non-perishable food, water and temporary shelter, clothing blankets, etc. The same qualities that make the Red Cross effective in disaster relief (pooled resources and expertise that can be mobilized on short notice) are the elements that make the federal government uniquely qualified to head up support operations in the aftermath. The need to be met stretches across three states and would readily have overwhelmed local resources and reserves. You can argue that local resources could be rapidly routed across state and county borders to areas in need, but such an ad hoc system would be 1) horribly inefficient 2) imposible to coordinate (too much here, not enough over there) and 3) subject to endless wrangling of local and state government, rather than simple mismanagement at the federal level (as has happened in this case).

[dr wnc]

You said: You can argue that local resources could be rapidly routed across state and county borders to areas in need, but such an ad hoc system would be 1) horribly inefficient 2) imposible to coordinate (too much here, not enough over there) and 3) subject to endless wrangling of local and state government, rather than simple mismanagement at the federal level (as has happened in this case).
Me: Why argue about the use of local resources as national resources? The point of many here is that the local and state goverments should have been involved in the inital relief efforts in their local areas, not across borders, or even counties.

Reveiw the first major diaster(War) that hit the US, 9/11. Without warning: Who was the point person locally?
Review the Hurricanes of last year, or even before 2002 with Andrew and David.
Inital responders were from the state, evacuations were handled by the community, city or county. The Army national guard was controled by the states governers, then and only then did FEMA arrive.
This disaster was given directly to the Federal Goverment, without concern, as an expectation and an attitude of Not my Problem.
This is not a typical American attitude and not a typical response from a state and local goverment. The situation quickly went down hill from that point and hopefully is not being recovered by the Federal Goverment.

[dr wnc]

might want to change the "not" to "now" in the second to last line.

[Chris Sears]

Rudy - he probably said all those BLEEP BLEEP words while in private but he came accross as a leader. There is no Leader here. Noone to look up to.

[imp]

a tear in the bear?....good gawd..there are lives on the line!