California Conservative

Last week, I asked what was going on in Louisiana government during the crisis. That picture is now beginning to develop.

On The Corner at NRO this morning:

24 HOUR WAIT?

[Kathryn Jean Lopez] I take everything this man says with a grain of salt, but is this true, what he claimed on CNN yesterday?

NOLA Mayor Nagin interview w/Soledad O’Brien in which he says Gov. Blanco told the President she needed 24 hours to make a decision for Federal aid.

NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, “No, you guys stay here. We’re going to another section of the plane, and we’re going to make a decision.” He called me in that office after that. And he said, “Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor.” I said — and I don’t remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

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.

UPDATE:
WizBang! has more CNN transcript, including video

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 at 8:49 am and is filed under Author: John Wilson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.