New Orleans Mayor Takes Swipe At NYC ("Can't get hole in ground fixed.")

[DeepModem Mom]

CBS: New Orleans Mayor Takes Swipe At NYC
Nagin Cites Failure To Rebuild Ground Zero While Defending Katrina Clean-Up
NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 2006


New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, left, defends the slow clean-up of his city after Hurricane Katrina, commenting in an interview with CBS News National Correspondent Byron Pitts that New York City's Ground Zero has not been rebuilt yet. (CBS NEWS/60 MINUTES)

Quote: "You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."
-- Mayor Ray Nagin


(CBS) Confronted by accusations that he’s taking too long to clean up his city after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin defended himself by remarking on New York City’s failure to rebuild Ground Zero.

Nagin made the remarks in an interview conducted by CBS News National Correspondent Byron Pitts which will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. EDT.

On a tour of the decimated Ninth Ward, Nagin tells Pitts the city has removed most of the debris from public property and it’s mainly private land that’s still affected – areas that can’t be cleaned without the owners' permission. But when Pitts points to flood-damaged cars in the street and a house washed partially into the street, the mayor shoots back. "That’s alright. You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Nagin is confident New Orleans will be whole again and will even be able to withstand another hurricane of Katrina strength, pointing out that taller and stronger levees are being built. It will take time.

"We’re into a five-to-seven-year build cycle....At the end of the day, I see the city being totally rebuilt. I see us eliminating blight, still being culturally unique," Nagin says....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/60minutes/main1933092.shtml

[northzax]

1. man's got a point, you know

it's rich to complain about the pace of building in NOLA when we've poured a billion dollars into a hole in the ground in Lower Manhattan with nothing to show for it.

[aquart]

14. Yes. Yes, he does.

Although I have to say the subways damaged by that hole were up and running much sooner than I expected.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

21. Well.... when your 'prezident' turns it into a Patriotic crusade

and every construction worker in the city gets involved, put aside their union grievances and the mafia is not allowed to sandbag the job as they usually do. And volunteers from every corner of the country and beyond fly in to offer their help. You'll get the hole cleaned up pretty quickly. 6 months in fact.
And then, when you have the financial capitol of the world in need of its transit system. You'll get that restored pretty quickly too.

So, there is no comparison. Nagin has a point: that if you are the financial capitol of the world, your nation's biggest, most important city, the literal and symbolic "ground zero" of the worst enemy attack ever on native soil- YOU WILL GET HELP... FAST.
However,
If you are a poor shithole of a city on a bayou that has little national significance and it's your poorest neighborhoods which were your "ground zero", and nobody from Who's Who in America lived in those 'hoods- NOBODY GIVES A SHIT.
At least, nobody in this Administration.

(Note: I personally do not think NOLA is a "shithole", I'm just trying to think like Bush/Cheney/Rove)

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. It's kinda true, though

And I'm a New Yorker.

Then again, maybe Nagin would be shocked to learn that they've been working on the same 500 yard segment of the Van Wyck Expressway since goddamn 1986, and I can't claim to have seen a lick of progress...:rofl:

[zonkers]

5. NY ought to throw some grass seed over that hole and sit tight for

another five years before they decide what to build there. I don't like the frame of mind we are all in right now.

[951-Riverside]

9. I think they should fill the damn thing and make it into a Park n/t

[aquart]

15. When it happened, I thought: the stadium.

Hell of a way to clear the land, though.

[LordLovesAWorkingMan]

3. Holy POOP

That guy has some major stones to let fly with that sort of remark. Even so, he has an inkling of a point...

[KingFlorez]

4. The entire city of New Orleans was damaged

Some parts more than others, but it's still a task cleaning up all parts and will take some time. New York has had five years to clean up on area and hasn't got it done, so he's really got a point.

[pitohui]

6. jeesus pleesus, he's taking lessons in tact from his buddy *

if nagin would get his ass out of dallas and do some work once in awhile, maybe something would get done in new orleans?

say what you like about landrieu and forman, they don't live in dallas

this is why i supported people voting in the election who actually live in orleans -- and for that matter people running in the election who actually live in orleans -- guess i'm just silly that way

[951-Riverside]

8. Give me a break

if nagin would get his ass out of dallas and do some work once in awhile, maybe something would get done in new orleans?

I guess you forgot a large number of Katrina victims were evacuated to Dallas. maybe just maybe he's going there because he's trying to get people to come back. Would Forman and Landrieu even bother, I doubt it.

say what you like about landrieu and forman, they don't live in dallas

Neither does Nagin

[pitohui]

11. oh yeah well his wife does EOM

,

[sam sarrha]

7. contractors area stealing all the clean up money and doing nothing..hiring

illegal aliens.. most of the clean up money went to a contractor that didn't have a truck and declared bankrupt the year before.

[Trajan]

10. Completely different objectives ....

in completely different environments, with completely different issues and scale ....

Honestly, a truly fallacious appeal .... Nagin stuck his foot in his mouth with this ...

I would expect such a statement from a repuke ....

[pitohui]

12. nagin is a repuke

the reality of orleans parish politics is that no one can be elected unless they are a democrat so lifelong republican nagin switched parties to run for the mayor of orleans, he is however GOP at heart and in practice, and he not only voted for * he gave him money

everybody in the area knows that nagin is a GOP cable exec -- he's a disgrace to the city and to the state, frankly

he is a classic capitalist reagan-style fascist who doesn't give a damn about this city, his first action was to get his family relocated to dallas, his second was to kiss *co ass

[billyoc]

13. Yeah, Ray, that's what I was thinking

while I was wracked with dysentary, vomiting out the window of a water damaged jeep delivering baby formula to your constituents last fall with my New York AFL-CIO volunteer brothers and sisters. I didn't do any of that to earn your gratitude, Ray, for I knew that you and your family would be fine. I knew that, Ray, because you are a republican, and republicans have a preternatural ability to avoid personal danger.

By the way, Ray, I am an Iron Worker. You know, the folks that can't fix a hole in the ground. I'm going to make this inexcusable delay up to you, Ray, I promise. When I finish each floor of the freedom tower, I will emblazon a beam with the following:

"Ray Nagin, republican coward"

I'll be sending the pictures of each beam, after each floor is completed to you personally, Ray.

Sorry for the delay.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. What a post, billyoc! Thank you, and thanks for your service...

in New Orleans.

[Kickoutthejams23]

17. How not to make friends and influence people.

How do this help him or New Orleans? Really seems like a six-year olds excuse not an adult conversation.

[Danmel]

18. It's a little more than a "Hole in the Ground", Ray

While I agree that progress rebuilding has been slow, to call Ground Zero a hole in the ground as if it got there by accident, is just a wee bit insulting to those who died there and their families. It is a huge graveyard, Ray. You gotta give it a little more respect than that. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Failure to rebuild New Orleans is a whole different ball of wax. There's plenty of blame to go around there- and you know what, you can't wholesale bulldoze there, because there are probably still bodies there too.

And Ray, show a little respect to the people of New York who came down to help (there were lots of them) sent supplies, aid and money. You may need us again some day- best not to burn bridges, you know.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

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[DeepModem Mom]

20. Thanks for your post, RosyBeth -- welcome to DU!

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[slackmaster]

23. Nagin is an assclown

:nuke:

Meanwhile, New Orleans' phone book gets thinner.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1974364

Nice work, Ray.

[gauguin57]

24. If I hear the effing words "Freedom Tower" one more time ...

... build a tower there, fine. But PLEASE, PLEASE someone get some perspective and name it something else before it's too late.

"They" don't "hate us for our freedom" ... they hate us for our foreign policy and our hubris. Foreign Policy and Hubris Tower doesn't have the same ring, I know, but ... GOD, this gauls me!

[HockeyMom]

25. Freedom FRIES Towers

I cannot get THAT out of my brain. I assume every school kid won't be able to either.