Cynical Nation

There's been much in the MSM lately about the White House's attempt to "shift blame" for the Katrina response to local officials. Actually, I find the White House's "blame shifting" to be extremely measured and restrained, considering that Nagin, Blanco, Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore and others scarcely waited for landfall before blaming Bush.

But now it looks like Mayor Nagin himself is pinning blame on the governor's office. Check out this video of a CNN interview with Mayor Nagin. It's fascinating. (And Soledad O'Brien is cute.)

The transcript is here, and it goes farther than the video segment.

S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

NAGIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?

NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.

NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died.

Governor Blanco's office declined to speak with CNN regarding Nagin's allegations.

Nagin's attitude is perhaps understandable, especially in light of this piece from Sunday's WaPo:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

In other words, Blanco was still resisting federal control two days after Mayor Nagin was swearing at the president on the radio for not having taken over yet.

(Hat tip: lgf)