More ways Nagin tends to behave like Bush

But keep reading for the shocking episode in which I actually defend Nagin.. somewhat


I'm just going to keep linking back to this post every time he does it from now on.

It's beginning to look like the latest Nagin political strategy is another maneuver right out of the old GOP playbook called, bully-the-media. Sunday, David posted a quote from the mayor's spokesperson in response to the increasingly slimy saga of Greg Meffert which basically accused the largely pro-Nagin T-P of "focusing on rumors".

And then today we have the following angry response from the mayor to reports of his latest flap.

Along with the Post, Nagin pointed a finger at The Times-Picayune for running a story Monday that he said compounded the problems with the Post account.

The Times-Picayune's story, most of which was attributed to the Post, said that Nagin "told" the newspaper group that a plot was afoot, whereas the Post story said that Nagin merely "suggested" such a plan.

"I'm really not happy about that because it went from the reporter saying that 'the mayor suggested' to The Times-Picayune this morning reporting that 'I said,' " Nagin said. "And that's just wrong. And it's not right."

At first glance, one gets the impression that the mayor is casting himself as besieged by a hostile media on purpose. That (phony) position worked well for him in his last political contest and I think he likes it. But there are two things I find interesting that need pointing out here.

First, Nagin's clarifications contain many statements that I wholeheartedly agree with and if they are indeed the meat of his speech then he is correct to say that the event was badly misreported. Examples:

As to why the city's recovery has been slow, Nagin flatly stated: "I did not say anything racial." He added, however, as he has said previously, that he believes if Katrina had occurred in a locale with higher incomes, such as Orange County, California, "it would have been a different response."

Because of race?

Not exactly. "I thought it was more of a class issue than a race issue," he said Monday, adding: "Now, racial aspects are obviously in everything we do."

Later, Nagin was asked to whom he was referring with the pronoun "they" in his Washington remarks, when he claimed that "they" are studying the Katrina model of dispersal.

"Who is 'they'? 'They' is a lot of people," Nagin said. "It's insurance companies that are not treating us correctly. It's the Road Home program that's not moving as fast as it should. It's our educational system that's still not educating our kids well."

When he told the audience in Washington that the dynamics of the mayoral election changed because "they dispersed all of our people across 44 states with one-way tickets," Nagin said he did not mean African-Americans when he referred to "our people."

"How is 'our' synonymous with black people?" he asked

I really can't argue with a single thing the mayor is saying here. In fact, the line of questioning seems to be a childish attempt to bait him into sounding like a "conspiracy theorist" but his definition of "they" I find quite satisfactory.. although I would add FEMA and the ACOE.. and the Bush Administration. Nagin has been fairly light in his criticism of the Feds preferring instead to attack Blanco at nearly every opportunity.. one of the many ways in which he has become a "useful idiot" for the State GOP.

But here is where I think the mayor's charge of biased reporting may be the most valid.

But Nagin also said that one of his white challengers acknowledged running for mayor because of the city's changed demographics.

"They basically said, 'Well, I ran because so many people were dispersed, and this was my best shot," he said. "Not necessarily that most of the black people were dispersed, but New Orleanians were dispersed. Now, disproportionately, more African-Americans were dispersed than anybody."

Point by point

Nagin also complained that the Washington Post mistakenly assumed he was referring to Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, his eventual runoff opponent, when he made reference to a "golden boy" supported by his detractors. Without naming names, Nagin implied Monday that Audubon Institute CEO Ron Forman was the intended target of that jab. "I didn't use anybody's name, and the guy they mentioned is not the one that got most of the gold initially," Nagin said.

Heading into the primary election, Forman led all fundraisers with more than $2 million in contributions, but finished third.

True.. absolutely true. The Forman candidacy was an attempted power grab orchestrated by this city's Uptown aristocracy based on the supposed "changed demographics" of the electorate. I refer you to Uptown resident and accomplished plutocrat Jimmy Reiss's comments shortly after the storm.. (and my take on them at the time if you're interested)

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

I'm sure the Wa-Po got this wrong out of pure ignorance. From their perspective, Landrieu was a white guy in the race so that must be who Nagin was talking about. But notice how the T-P includes this in a line of other items from Nagin that it tonally derides as conspiracy theorizing. Remember Forman was the T-P's man. Our paper is still largely an aristocratic mouthpiece. The dire times just happen to force it to lapse into fits of actual journalism slightly more often these days.

So if Nagin is characterizing his own remarks correctly, I think he has a legitimate beef with the reportage. But that just brings us back to my second point point that though Nagin is right to decry these various "conspiracies" against recovery, he and the paper once again conveniently gloss over his willful complicity much of what he is describing. Nagin was originally elected with the full blessing of the plutocracy, he was reelected with the vigorous backing of the Louisiana Republican Party. His policies have not effectively facilitated the return of the poor and displaced. Instead he has backed a scheme to knock down public housing units and turn the land over to private developers. Education in New Orleans has devolved into a bizarre privatization experiment. The response of our criminal justice system to a skyrocketing murder rate has involved, military occupation, random detainment of citizens, and even de facto debtor's prisons. I could go on.. but you get the point.

Railing impotently against an injustice with which one is involved in perpetrating is cheap demagoguery. And to quote the mayor, "...that's just wrong. And it's not right."

Clarification: David points out in the comments below that the state Republican Party was "officially" neutral in the 2006 Mayor's election.

Anyone who says that the Louisiana Republican Party campaigned for Nagin could be made to look foolish in a barroom or family political discussion. The GNOR is not the state party. The GNOR campaigned vigorously for Nagin. Jeff Crouere even said that it did so with the blessing of the Bush White House. For that matter, Crouere kept reminding his conservative readers and listeners that Bush's appearances with Nagin amounted to a de facto endorsement, but the state Republican Party was officially neutral. Some prominent Republicans backed Landrieu, some backed Nagin.

While the GNOR is not the official state GOP, their campaign combined with the cheerleading of prominent Republicans like Couig and Crouere leaves little doubt where the unofficial rooting interests were.