Background on Ray Nagin
By cs Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
With all the notoriety he's received lately, I was curious what sort of man Mayor Ray Nagin is and so started the research on his pre-Katrina careeer.
He was a Cox Communications executive where he became wealthy. Nagin was a lifelong Republican who has donated money to Bush's campaigns and has endorsed Republican candidates. He only switched parties because of the near-impossibility of a Republican ever winning office in New Orleans.
From what I've read, he was very aggressive in eliminating city corruption and getting jobs. I also found it interesting that he is one of the few individuals to get a positive report from both the National Review and the DLC.
Wikipedia
His battle against city corruption
National Review
An NPR profile from 2003
An assessment of his legacy at mid-term
His DLC profile
He was a Cox Communications executive where he became wealthy.
All I know about him is a few sound bytes from television interviews I've heard replayed on NPR (I don't have a TV). From those, if asked to guess, I never would have placed him as a corporate executive, nor a Republican, nor a supporter of the President (I gather that last may have changed recently). I would have guessed he came out of the political / activist / civil rights community.
There are certain things that leaders can't do. Leaders can't screw up in a manner that causes massive loss of life. Leaders suffer consequences even if it isn't fair.
The Captain of the submarine that hit a underwater mountain that wasn't on the charts got sacked. And in his interview he almost cheerfully accepted his fate...the end of a naval career.
Pro sports team coaches get sacked all the time for things that were likely out of their control. You don't hear them "yeah-but"ing. Why? Because leaders know that everything is your fault ultimately.
Agreed, he should go. Which is a shame, because I started to like the guy after reading of his pre-Katrina career. But even then, he had his blind spots. He couldn't seem to reduce the crime rate and clean up the police. If I'm not mistaken, the murder rate went up after he was elected.
Blanco should go too. From what I've read, everyone was convinced she was a one-termer even before Katrina.
On the same note, Chertoff and Brown should also go. Especially Brown. In his past life, he apparently couldn't even adequately run an organization which dealt with horses. Bush should replace him with someone with 20-30 years emergency experience. Or, in what would be a great PR move, replace him with Guiliani.
He can't run FEMA at the same time.
I'm not convinced that a post hurricane response could have been better planned without causing other problems, like getting rescue workers and security and military personnel killed.
He is overwhelmed right now. He has probably not slept in a few days. He clearly was not knowledgeable of the level of disaster planning a city like NO reuires.
I think that if he snaps out of this immature funk he can still emerge as an effective leader.