The Mayor Is Pissed

The partial transcript of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's interview with a WWL reporter (via Daily Dissent):

We told them there is an incredible crisis here, and his [Prez Bush's] flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources, and we're out-manned in just about every respect. You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man. And old ladies -- when you pull off the doggone ventilator vent, and you look down there, and they're standing in there and water up to their freaking neck. And they [all the president's men] don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over, with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We're talking about, you know, one of the reasons we're talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here, bus people. I'm like, "You got to be kidding me!" This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound Bus line in the country, and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That's their thinking -- small, man! And this is a major, major, major deal. I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy. I've got 15- to 20-thousand people over at the convention center; it's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish, the airvac of people over here over to New Orleans. And we don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers. It's awful down here, man.

I have no idea what they're doing, but I will tell you this: you know God is looking down on all this, and if they're not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because everyday that we delay, people are dying, and they're dying by the hundreds I'm willing to bet you. We are getting reports that are breaking my heart. [...] They're feeding the public a line of bull, and they're spinning, and people are dying down here....