By Andrew L. Jaffee

Ray Nagin has shot his mouth off again, calling 911’s hallowed ground — the remnants of the World Trade Center — “a hole in the ground.” One only knows how he was re-elected as New Orleans’ mayor, given his track-record of public gaffs. Touchy, touchy. Nagin lashed out at New York City after being “confronted by accusations that he’s taking too long to clean up his city after Hurricane Katrina.” This was a Freudian slip, as Nagin does bare responsibility for the disastrous response to Katrina, as do Louisiana state officials. But I doubt we’ll see any change in Nagin’s pattern of behavior.

John McIntyre of RealClearPolitics today pointed out that Nagin’s outburst may just create a forceful political backlash:

Let me give a little piece of unsolicited PR advice to Mayor Nagin: comments like that will quickly have the country siding 95% with New York and against New Orleans. I get pissed just thinking about Nagin contemptuously describing the ground where Islamist’s attacked and murdered over 2,500 Americans as simply “A hole in the ground.”

I’d love to see a full scale, accurate and honest documentary covering the entire Katrina crisis period of Mayor Nagin and the New Orleans city government and compare that to Mayor Giuliani and New York City’s response to 9/11.

The press can continue its crusade against George W. Bush (and there is no question the Federal government made mistakes in their handling of Katrina), but as more and more of the truth comes out, the historical facts are going to prove that to the degree someone, or government, is to “blame” for this natural disaster, a large part of the responsibility falls on Nagin and the City of New Orleans.

Previously, after blaming America for Hurricane Katrina and calling for his city to become a “chocolate New Orleans”, Mayor Ray Nagin issued the standard political apology. His original statements belied his true motives, and his mea culpa dug him into a deeper hole.

Here’s what Nagin said about America and its African-American citizens:

As we think about rebuilding New Orleans, surely God is mad at America. He’s sending hurricane after hurricane after hurricane. . . Surely he’s not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America, also.

Nagin has yet to explain what Iraq has to do with hurricanes, and hasn’t presented any evidence of “false pretenses.” He also urged that the Crescent City’s residents should:

…rebuild a “chocolate New Orleans” and saying, “You can’t have New Orleans no other way.”

The UK’s Guardian presented a sanitized version of Nagin’s apology today:

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, has apologised for a speech in which he predicted the city would be a “chocolate” city once more and asserted that Hurricane Katrina was a sign that “God was mad at America” and black communities for their violence.

“I said some things that were totally inappropriate … it shouldn’t have happened,” Mr Nagin said, explaining that his speech was meant to convey that black people were a vital part of New Orleans’ history and should be encouraged to return.

But CNN presented more revealing insight into Nagin’s mea culpa:

“I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day,” he said. “This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.”

After the statement, he insisted he wasn’t being divisive.

“How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about,” he said. “New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special.”

One New Orleans resident presented the best rebutal to the mayor’s comments:

Resident Alex Gerhold called Nagin’s remarks “stupid” and “pitiful.”

“He used the wrong dairy product to describe us. We’re more Neapolitan, not chocolate,” Gerhold said. “It doesn’t do the city any kind of justice.”

The Boston Globe revealed Nagin’s true motives:

If God is intent on wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast, as Nagin suggested, who could blame the mayor if the response to the disaster was ineffective or if rebuilding plans haven’t advanced very far? God, it would seem, is being used as a shield for individual shortcomings.

It is quite awful for Nagin to speak so harshly of the Big Easy’s Garden District (Uptown). Wealthy or not, the residents there have stayed on, and continued to pay their taxes, despite being subject to the city’s rampant crime and corruption.

It is also inexcusable for Nagin to invoke God and point fingers instead of accepting responsibility for his own mismanagement of his city.

So now Nagin is going after the Big Apple. What’s next?

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Related: United States, Political Correctness

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