Ray Nagin Pulls A Kerry on CBS: "50 Percent" of Americans Live On Gulf Coast

NewsBusters ^ | 2/2/06 | Michael Rule

[frankjr]

As was reported yesteday on NewsBusters, Democratic Senator John Kerry wasn't challenged on the Today show after he claimed that 53% of Americans don't graduate from high school. Well on this morning's Early Show, New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin made an equally silly claim, "50% of all residents in the United States live along the Gulf Coast." I listened to the soundbite several times to ensure I heard him correctly.

The claim came during an interview with Harry Smith about President Bush's State of the Union Address and the challenges in rebuilding New Orleans, but was Harry Smith even listening to Nagin? One would think a competent journalist would have picked up on such an outragreous claim and challenged Nagin on it, or asked Nagin to clarify his remarks. Would Smith had let that slide if it were a Republican making such assertions?

A transcript of the exchange in question follows below.

Harry Smith: "That's quite all right. Let me ask you a question here. The President paid scant attention to New Orleans, the whole Gulf Coast in general and Katrina during his State of the Union Address two nights ago. What is your reaction to that?"

Ray Nagin: "Well, you know, my reaction is similar to most people along the Gulf Coast. We were very disappointed. We thought that the President would come out and reaffirm his commitment to rebuild in the Gulf Coast, which is a very important portion of the country. 50% of all residents in the United States live along the Gulf Coast. So, you would think that he would demonstrate a firmer commitment to rebuild than what we heard."

Nagin’s exaggerated claim wasn’t his only inaccurate statement of the day. At the very beginning of the interview, after he is introduced, he calls his host by the wrong name, "David." The transcript follows:

Harry Smith: "A new congressional report on the poor federal response to hurricane Katrina notes "a lack of leadership." It suggests the White House and the Homeland Security office both failed to take decisive action. Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was on Capitol Hill to answer some questions too yesterday. Mayor Nagin joins us this morning from the crescent city. Good morning Mr. Mayor?"

Ray Nagin: "Good morning David how are you?"

Smith: "It's Harry Smith here, but that's all right, we'll keep going."

Nagin: "Harry?"

Smith shrugged it off after correcting him, but what else could Harry do? It’s not like Harry hasn’t forgotten names while conducting interviews before.

[originalbuckeye]

When the majority of African-Americans stop voting for other African-Americans simply because they are African-Americans, perhaps we will be able to move ahead in the political arena. A truly color-blind society and culture would be such an improvement!

[Richard Kimball]

Ray Nagin: "Good morning David how are you?"

Smith: "It's Harry..."

Nagin: "I'll bet it's big, too."

[frankjr]

I think I found where Nagin screwed up. Per the US Census: " About 53 percent of the nation’s total population lives in coastal areas, which account for only 17 percent of the total U.S. land area. The total population of Alabama’s coastal counties’ in 2004 was 727,090, or about 16 percent of the state’s entire population. Mississippi’s coastal counties’ population was 607,635, or 21 percent of the state population. Louisiana’s coastal parishes’ total population was 3,555,628, or about 79 percent the state's population. Gulf coast counties in Florida contained 6.8 million residents, or about 39 percent of the state’s total population."

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/hurricanes_tropical_storms/005345.html

The Gulf coast is about 12MM people (out of 300MM U.S. or 4%). Mayor Noggin' forgot those other "coasts" in the U.S...the little ones like the Alantic Coast and the Pacific Coast. LOL!!!!

[RightResponse]

”Ray Nagin: "Good morning David how are you?"

Smith: "It's Harry..." “

Ray Nagin: "Yeah, it may be Harry, but it's not chocolate!"

[maica]

Which seems to happen pretty regularly.

[dfwgator]

Total populations of states on the Gulf Coast, and of most of those populations do not even live on the Gulf Coast:

Texas: 20 million
Louisiana: 5 million
Alabama, Mississippi: 7 million
Florida: 20 million


And these figures are on the high-end, and that's still only about 50 million out of 300 million.

[frankjr]

Typo in my prior post...should be "Atlantic" not "Alantic".

[RightResponse]

Damn, beat me to it!

[thoughtomator]

Maybe he meant that the other 50% are illegals?

[bella1]

There's that Million Man Math again. Why can't i get it to work with my bank accounts!

[PBRSTREETGANG]

All in a day's work for:

[One4Indictment]

And let us never forget this WHOPPERby Congressman Major Owens...

It always seems to be liberals who like to make up numbers. Consider Congressman Major Owens. In a speech to the House he claimed that over 200,000,000 blacks died at sea during the slave trade and were thrown overboard. Even now, sharks patrol those routes looking for black meat.

[ElectricStrawberry]

Good catch. I was figuring he was taking every state along the Mississippi river as "part of the Gulf Coast"....and ALL of Florida...in the winter to catch the snow-birds. California has a Gulf too, even if it's in Mexico....count them in.

[bunches]

"Good morning David how are you?"

Hey Freepers, can that be one of our new all-purpose phrases we use in many threads like one of our all-time favorites:

"What's the frequency Kenneth?"

[Phantom Lord]

Liberals love to make up numbers. Remember homeless advocate Mitch Snyder? In one of his blistering attacks on President Reagan and his insensitivy about the homeless, Mitch claimed that X number of homeless die every minute. I can't remember the number at this time.

This was my first introduction in questioning what people say and "doing the math." Turns out that the number Mitch gave, if multiplied by the number of minutes in a year exceeded the total population of the US.

Was total BS.

[GOPJ]

The claim came during an interview with Harry Smith about President Bush's State of the Union Address and the challenges in rebuilding New Orleans, but was Harry Smith even listening to Nagin? One would think a competent journalist would have picked up on such an outragreous claim and challenged Nagin on it, or asked Nagin to clarify his remarks. Would Smith had let that slide if it were a Republican making such assertions?

NO, they would have made fun of the man forever if he was Republican - it would be "potato" and the "grocery store scanner" forever...

[doggieboy]

I think he meant to say that almost 50% of Americans know where the Gulf Coast is.

[Phantom Lord]

"grocery store scanner"

Ran endlessly on the news. But when Clinton went to a Habitat For Humanity home to "help" he was given a cordless drill to use. He didn't know what it was or what to do with it because he had never seen a cordless drill before. How often did you see that on the news?

[WasDougsLamb]

New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin made an equally silly claim, "50% of all residents in the United States live along the Gulf Coast."


---I guess when you go around making up phantom cops , you might as well make up phantom residents too. It amazes me the way these people make up sh*t just to hear themselves talk and act like they have pertinent data the rest of us are not privy too. Do they realize how friggin ignorant they sound?

[nk_47]

Maybe he meant 50% by weight. There's some big folks down there.

LOL. There's tons of people, just not a lot of 'em.