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I was just on my way out the door when I heard the oh-so-familiar sound of Wolf Blitzer taking to Ray Nagin on CNN. For those of you that missed it, Blizter said (repeatedly) that he was impressed with the city’s handling of the NBA All-Star game last year and that New Orleans is “coming back, slowly but surely”. Not news for us in the Big Easy, but surely it can’t hurt for a national media outlet to emphasize this.
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Nagin, for his part, talked about how he was assured by President Barack Obama (It sounds sweeter the more you say it. President Barack Obama.) that New Orleans will be rebuilt and that he will follow through on the “broken promises” of the Bush Administration (that was also noted on the new White House Web site).
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Some other interesting points were raised:
- Nagin talked about how New Orleans is rated as one of the best cities to ride out a recession. He may have been citing this Business Week article.
- Blitzer’s co-host (I believe it was Don Lemon) mentioned that, because New Orleans is in complete rebuilding mode, it could serve as a model for cities all over the country that are looking for federal aid in this tough economic climate.
- Nagin derided the beaurocracy that has bottlenecked fedral funds coming into New Orleans. He also said that “we are ready with projects that we could go ahead with tomorrow” if the money were available. He also said that, even in the current economic climate, the estimated $700 million that are needed isn’t “that much” and that “we seem to be printing money all the time.” Though he didn’t really talk about the effect of cutting funding for education and sanitation will have on the city.
- Apparantly “everyone’s talking about” some close-up shot of Nagin at the inaguration. I only found this one. Is there another “everyone’s talking about”?
