Have you heard what comes out of Nagin’s mouth? We don’t consider him a criminal mastermind, just one who constantly makes excuses for mistakes and hinders this recovery. The lack of transparency is far worse than a crime.

I’m so sick of that line of reasoning about Jim Letten. Nagin’s been in office for six years, how long did it take to indict Jefferson or anybody connected to Mor ial? Also, any investigation of the Nagin administration would involve an investigation into Katrina reconstruction contracts, think maybe the Bush Justice Department would be reluctant to open that can of worms?

I thought Nagin was merely incompetent and indifferent until his re-election campaign. Once Nagin told us to ask ourselves why people were giving money to his opponent, I looked at who was giving money to Nagin and wrote:

“it seems like the mayor takes a fair amount of money from businesses (including out of state businesses) that either do business with the city, or may seek to do business with the city. Hard to tell very much from a list of individual campaign donors, but I was shocked to see CH2MHILL, that CH2MHILL, among the mayor’s donors. Considering the city’s abandoned car and general garbage disposal situation and the mayor’s insinuations about taking donations from individuals who might want to profit from the city, it seems like the mayor gets a lot of Benjamins from companies in the disposal, scrap metal or landfill business.”

The contracts to cronies and campaign donors is reason one to dismiss Hanlon’s razor.

Reason two would be the lack of transparency that Maitri cites. By itself, it wouldn’t be proof of criminality, but secrecy where public money is involved and national security is not an excuse, should always be a red flag.

Thirdly, there’s the absurd lack of spending priorities from a mayor who promised to “stretch every dollar” to make the recovery work. We always hear staff shortages as an excuse for poor services or failure to communicate, but we find money for new garbage and Disneyland garbage collection, complete with a tactical trash force. Could a businessman’s, could anybody’s, spending priorities be that out of whack?

I think that Occam’s razor would lead us to throw away Hanlon’s razor where Nagin’s concerned.