AOL poll: President slays mayor on storm

Mayor Ray Nagin (WWL-TV, New Orleans)

As debate continues to rage over government response to Hurricane Katrina, the public clearly thinks New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin – not President Bush – is the one to blame, according to a new online poll by America Online.

With more than 589,000 responses in today's unscientific survey, 65 percent of participants rate Nagin's handling of the Katrina disaster as "poor."

Only 10 percent of AOL users said Nagin's response was "excellent," 13 percent called it "good," and 12 percent termed it "fair."

When asked who has done a better job during the crisis, 67 percent named President Bush, and only 33 percent chose Nagin.

AOL calls Nagin "a compelling figure at the center of the storm – literally and figuratively," and says it decided to do its poll now because "there seemed to be critical mass: he reversed his controversial decision to reopen parts of his city; he's offering yet more criticism of federal officials; and he's bracing for another possible strike from a hurricane."

A WorldNetDaily poll from Sept. 12 asked, "What's your opinion of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin?"

With close to 6,000 responses, over 40 percent said he was "obviously not qualified or competent to hold such an important position;" 22 percent called him "the quintessence of a public hazard responsible for many hurricane-related deaths;" and 14 percent said "he's everything New Orleans deserves, since citizens voted him in."

The New Orleans mayor, a Democrat, is now forever linked to images of flooded school buses – vehicles not deployed by him despite being part of the city's plan for evacuation in case of a disaster.

Oil slick emerges from hundreds of flooded buses never used to evacuate New Orleans residents from Hurricane Katrina

Just three days after Katrina struck the Crescent City, Nagin referred to the buses during an interview with radio station WWL, stating:

I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

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 a--es moving to New Orleans."

This past Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Nagin again addressed the issue of buses, noting, "Sure, there was lots of buses out there. But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."

Hundreds of scathing comments from AOL users have been posted in connection with the poll, including:

"Mayor Nagin should be arrested for neglect. He should be charged the same as the couple who allowed the elderly folks die in the rest home in New Orleans. He had a plan for evacuation and failed to follow it! It's not the president's job to go rushing into a state and take over. He is ultimately responsible for the deaths of hundreds."

"First, [Nagin] leaves 300 school buses in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool to rot, and then asks Bush for buses. Second, he sets up the Superdome for evacuees, but has no water, food, or police there. People are raped, murdered, and doctors shot at while he and the police chief do nothing. Third, he tells people to come back to parts of New Orleans, even with health officials and FEMA telling him it's not safe. Now he has to evacuate again. What a moron! No wonder he blames everyone else."

"The mayor is an idiot, playing the race card. He needs to be removed from office and banished as an American! 'Send the Greyhound buses,' when he had buses. Mayor Nagin, you killed those people, you sent them to death. God will judge you if you are not killed first by the people who elected you!"

"How in the hell could the mayor think it was OK to let residents back into the city? What will they do and what will the kids do? Apparently he has no clue what is involved with restoring power and such back to a city that has been overwhelmed with mass destruction."

"First he complained that the feds weren't responding fast enough. Now he complains that they have overstepped their boundaries. He's all about blaming someone else. While school buses sat unused, he sat in his hotel room. Nice leadership."

"Mayor Nagin has been quick to blame so many others, but before the hurricane hit and he called for the evacuations, that is when he should have used every school and city bus to help those who wanted to leave the city get out. He knew that most of his citizens were poor black people who didn't have a way out. That said, he could probably save some credibility if he would ask ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani for his help and guidance."

"Mayor Nagin is no doubt well intentioned, but he lacks the administrative expertise required to manage the crisis that he has been confronted with, he is totally over his head on this one."

"Nagin has been faced with a natural disaster like no other in recent history. He needs our support and understanding not slaps in the face. Unless you have walked in the same shoes you have no right to be such harsh critics."

"OK. One, Nagin does not have the same powers as the president, he has done the best he can under the circumstances. Two, if you really must blame someone/thing, blame all that red-tape from FEMA and the government, that's what caused a slow response in relief. Three, Nagin is the best, and I mean, the best thing to happen to New Orleans since Jazz. I mean the man has breathed new life into a dying city. When he first took office, he rooted out a lot of corruption in city hall and made the city a good place to do business. Our former mayor, Mark Morial, had a very corrupt administration and I'd hate to see where the city would be if he were still mayor."

"The mayor did, and is doing a great job, given the resources available. He asked the feds for help, just as [Louisiana] Gov. Blanco did, and the help never got there. But you out there just want to have a black man to blame everything on! It is a racial issue like it or not. Just look at all the people left behind. The majority were blacks!"

"He is doing as good of a job as he can with what he has to work with. He also was at the mercy of other government officials to get what the people of his city needed. Do you think that if Katrina happened here in Los Angeles where I live that we would have had to wait for days to get the bare necessities? I think not. I don't believe Nagin is to blame for what has transpired in New Orleans."

"I think he's done an admirable job. How many city mayors have expertise in emergency management of this magnitude? If the slow response from the federal government had occurred on 9-11, and if many more lives had been on the line by that slow or non-response, Mayor Giuliani would surely have demanded (or in this case, 'lost his cool') action. FEMA and the federal government screwed up; admit it and push them to fix it so it doesn't happen again. I wonder, does anyone want to trade places right now with Mayor Nagin?"

"Nagin has done a magnificent job given the lack of help coming from the federal government. It was only after his assertiveness with the president and the federal agencies did things began to happen in the positive for the Katrina hurricane individuals. You need to find another scapegoat. Under the circumstances, Mayor Nagin did the best job to date. He put the people first, not property!"

If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.

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