Evacuate New Orleans: Has the mayor really thought this through?
Seems that the confused mayor of the city he abandoned on August 29th is now trying to assert the authority he failed to exercise in the wake of Katrina!
Where is this man getting his inspiration? It sure couldn’t be from his disaster-preparedness handbook, which evidently hasn’t been written yet.
Now we learn that today he ordered the total evacuation of the beleaguered city—including the 25% of the city that was virtually unaffected and is intact. Evidently, he didn't count on the wrath of residents who might even resort to weapons, if necessary, to meet the force he’s promised to use to evict them.
I was encouraged by the pluck of one black man (the owner of his own home) lying on his chaise lounge on his porch while CNN interviewed him. The 73-year old said, “I ain’t movin.’ Why should I? Everything’s workin’ here now. Phone, water, electricity. And 'sides, where would I go? To lay on a cot in some school gymnasium, with a bunch of gun-totin’ cops marchin' up and down to make sure I stays put?”
Asked by the interviewer why he thought the mayor was insisting that people like him evacuate, the old man didn’t miss a beat: “Wanna know why? I'll tell you why. ‘Cause when we’s gone, who do'ya think’s gonna be lootin’ my house and everyone else's 'round here?”
Umm . . . the old boy's hallucinating--that kind of thinking is . . . well . . . conspiratorial. But wait a minute, do you suppose he’s onto something? After all, he's old enough to have heard about and maybe's even been personally touched by Huey Long's long shadow over Louisiana. Keep your eye on the ball in coming days and weeks. The name of the ball: CORRUPTION.
“No, sir, I been here 53 years, and I ain’t leavin’—they’ll have to carry me out in a body bag.”
A young black woman next to him, hands on hips, chimed in: “Yeah, one of them cops that keeps going up an’ down the street tol’ me today, if’n we don’ move out, he was gonna bring back an extra large body bag to haul us all out.”
She continued: “Well, I jes’ tol’ him, he’d save ever'body a whole lotta trouble, if’n he’d jes’ bring back a bunch of ‘one-size-fits’ all bags. I’d fit jes’ fine in one of ‘em. We ain't leaving here."
A couple hours later, TV reports began to come in to us armchair analysts that the mayor and governor are wringing their hands in more indecision (not necessarily in agreement over details) . Whether and how to apply force on those who wouldn’t obey the evacuation order? General Honore, in charge of active duty Army troops--including elements of the 82nd Airborne just back from Iraq--said he wouldn’t take part in such an order (posse comitatus, you know). The general in charge of the Army National Guard said the governor hadn’t issued him orders yet. Well, maybe the Nola Police Chief would know.
So the TV interviewer turned hopefully to the man in the trenches. The Chief said he worked for the mayor and "I'm sure not gonna go against him." Under continued questioning by the interviewer, the Chief demurred: “I'm not at liberty to answer that question.” Then, as if an epiphany had just occurred to him, he deferred the question to the city attorney, whom he said the mayor had appointed to handle “these kinds of problems.” His boss the mayor had ordered a mandatory 100% evacuation, but evidently hadn't told his police chief how to deal with his recalcitrant citizens, who were already beginning to growl. Imagine! If the Chief can be believed, his boss the mayor, delegated his fundamental responsibility to the city attorney—the city attorney, of all people!
Where did the mayor learn the managerial technique of delegating responsibility? Watching Catch 22? We certainly know he doesn't believe in Harry S. Truman's "buck stop principle."
Meanwhile, the governor remains barricaded in the taxpayers' mansion in Baton Rouge, answering demands for news interviews by sending out her daughter. In a brief moment when the guv was unavoidably caught by reporters outside her office yesterday, she testily brushed off questions about her inaction before and after the hurricane, or about her contentious relationship with the mayor of New Orleans—“I’m still focused on saving lives” she said. Oh sure! Somehow that assertion rings eerily like a line from a Kafka short story.
I’m not putting my money on the governor or the mayor—they’ve had more than their share of opportunities to prove themselves--and they’ve utterly failed. And I won't play the Left's utterly hypocritical and cynical game by blaming the U.S. president who, if reports are accurate, did more than he was obligated when he tried to cajole the Louisiana governor to turn over her state's problem to the feds the day after the hurricane passed.
Even if this report isn't entirely accurate (although Nola's mayor corroborated it during a TV snippet), it is not morally, nor has it ever been legally Washington's problem to provide first-response assistance to states and municipalities. Those who believe that America was founded on the "Big Brother" top-down principle of government are the very people who must stand accountable for the Orwellian dependency attitude, which some observers are now trying to connect to the human disaster in New Orleans.
No siree, Bob, I’m putting my money on those property owners (yes, Virginia, there are blacks who own their own homes) who’ll be damned if they’re going to let bumbling bureaucrats evict them from perfectly sound homes—their only sanctuary and equity on this planet. These folks are practicing a basic tenet of freedom under trial by fire: You cannot trust the words (or lack of them) of any government. Especially after their functionaries have amply proved their incompetence.
Mr. Mayor, your resignation is way overdue. Why don’t you hand over the reins to your city attorney who probably is much better prepared to govern the city? Then perhaps your governor will also follow suit—surely there’s some bright young clerk on her staff who would do at least an equally good job--probably even better.
Now that Nature has done her work, followed by the ineptness of earthbound officials, New Orleans and the state of Lousiana will recover much faster and with fewer snafus, if these clowns will just keep their hands off the people, listen to some of them, and let them rebuild.
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