Hurricane Ray strikes New York

It came to me a while back that continually embattled New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has “Howard Dean Syndrome.” Cogent observations may lie at the heart of what he says, but it’s difficult to tell because cognitive temperature never rises to a sufficient level to complete the reasoning process. That is: Nagin makes half-baked statements, and usually as loudly as he can. The latest exemplar of this syndrome will be displayed for the public on 60 Minutes this coming Sunday:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site when confronted in a television interview about delays in rebuilding his city after Hurricane Katrina.

During the CBS “60 minutes” interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans’ devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair,” according to CBS.

The program is scheduled to air Sunday night. Text and a video clip from the Nagin piece were posted on CBS’ Web site Thursday.

Yeah, there’s a point behind that patented “blunt style” - rebuilding takes time - but it gets lost beneath Nagin’s defensive, dismissive bluster. What could have been a call for understanding of the difficulties involved - and a call for increased help, which NOLA badly needs - becomes instead a combative sound byte better suited for a hometown rally than a national address. There’s a gulf between campaigning and governing, a divide that has escaped politicians other than Nagin. It’s just disappointing to see that after all this time and a hotly contested reelection, he hasn’t actually grasped the difference.

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