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I'm not giving the mayor a pass, even given what happened. All of us here following the hurricane came to the conclusion that New Orleans would be hit by Friday. Some of us predicted it earlier than that, but even the NHC who had been previously been predicting a far more eastern track had reached that conclusion by late Friday night.

The mayor did not act until nearly noon on Sunday, less than 12 hours before the outer fringes of the storm hit the city.

That was just way too late. I have no idea whether his prediction skills on the number of deaths is correct, but that's not he was hired.

It's a fact that the new pumps are in a warehouse, perhaps ruined, because of city mismanagement which long preceded him. But he didn't do anything to change that.

New Orleans is a cesspool of corrupt politics and you can't even get elected unless you're part of that corrupt cabal.

So no, I'm not willing to give him a pass. He didn't even try.

Some great points.... while I am all in favor of restoring New Orleans, I only support it if they agree to make a lot of changes - straighten out their local politics, build better levees or build up the city like Galveston did, and have a PLAN... because there will be a next time.

Corrupt cities get corrupt mayors and die from it. Mayor Nagin can declare martial law (aka suspend habeus corpus) and ask for federal military assistance too, but only for New Orleans. Governor Blanco can do so for New Orleans and all the other flooded areas, even when their mayors won't.

But neither will act.

My point about Blanco is, however, that she will be blamed for acting like a weak woman because she is female, even though Nagin has done exactly the same thing. Nagin hasn't cried on camera. Blanco did, so IMO future female gubernatorial candidates just took a hit.

Tough. These two have the duties, and won't do them.