Monday, September 05, 2005
THINKING TIME REQUESTED
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin puts some heat on Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco:
Nagin singled out Gov. Kathleen Blanco for criticism, saying that the governor had asked for 24 hours to think over a decision when time was a luxury that no one, especially refugees, had.
“When the president and the governor got here, I said, ‘Mr. President, Madame Governor, you two have to get in synch. If you don’t, more people are going to die.”
Blanco and Bush met privately at his insistence, Nagin said, after which Bush came out and told Nagin that he had given Blanco two options, and she requested a full day to decide.
“It would have been great if we could have walked off Air Force One and told the world we had it all worked out,” Nagin said. “It didn’t happen, and more people died.”
Plenty of blame here to go around. It takes a lot of officials and committees and Federal plans and state authorities for a situation to turn out this poorly.