Asked by 'Little Russ' about his performance, Nagin replied:
"You know, I'm sure I could have done a lot of things much better, but I will tell you this, Tim: I was there. I was among the people in the Superdome. I knew what was going on every minute. I did not have air conditioning nor shower facilities. I made decisions based upon facts and not what I thought was going to happen. So history will judge me based upon those actions. But I will tell you something: I think I did everything possible known to any mayor in the country as it relates to saving lives. And I think as this continues to unfold, history will say that we did some things to save thousands and thousands of lives. Now, could we have done things better? Absolutely."
Let's see....
Oh, yeah ...the Buses?
"You know, Tim, that's one of the things that will be debated. (Really?) There has never been a catastrophe in the history of New Orleans like this. There has never been any Category 5 storm of this magnitude that has hit New Orleans directly. (You don't say?) We did the things that we thought were best based upon the information that we had. Sure, here was lots of buses out there (yeah! about 500 or so..) But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."
Stay behind? If they would have been driving evacuees, they wouldn't have been "staying behind".....sheesh! "Help me I can't believe the words that are a comin out of my mouth!"
So the drivers fled?
What? Did they go to Vegas?
How about those Amtrak trains and their offer to move people for free?
MR. RUSSERT: "Amtrak said they offered to remove people from the city of New Orleans on Saturday night and that the city of New Orleans declined."
MAYOR NAGIN: "I don't know where that's coming from. Amtrak never contacted me to make that offer. As a matter of fact, we checked the Amtrak lines for availability, and every available train was booked, as far as the report that I got, through September. So I'd like to see that report.
MR. RUSSERT: They said they were moving equipment out of New Orleans in order to protect it and offered to take evacuees with them.
MAYOR NAGIN: I have never gotten that call, Tim, and I would love to have had that call. But it never happened."
You can read more of the transcript here. Basically it's a whole lot of "assuming" and "blaming". When asked by Russert: "What's the biggest mistake you made?" Nagin responded:
"My biggest mistake is having a fundamental assumption that in the state of Louisiana, with an $18 billion budget, in the country of the United States that can move whole fleets of aircraft carriers across the globe in 24 hours, that my fundamental assumption was get as many people to safety as possible, and that the cavalry would be coming within two to three days, and they didn't come."
Yeah, yeah, everybody but ME.
Again, assumptions and blaming, not a trait of leadership, but of a coward.
The fact is that there was a plan, a whole lot of buses, a train and and yet Mayor Nagin was in way over his head - way over.
He can "twist and shout" all he wants, nobody with a half a brain is buying this crap.
More at Redstate.
Also The Political Teen has the Video of Mary Landrieu(D) on Fox News Sunday dodging the Bus (and other) questions by Chris Wallace.
While you're at it, check out the video on Governor Blanco admitting her screw up on requesting troops. Classic!
Filed under Katrina disaster relief new orleans emergency response FEMA Mary Landrieu Mayor Nagin
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