Chocolatier in Chief Strikes Again

From today's Times-Picayune:

Nagin denies comments had racial implication
By Gordon Russell
Staff writer

In what has become a cliché of post-Katrina politics, Mayor Ray Nagin stood before the media Monday in an effort to undo any possible racial fallout from remarks he made in a speech last week that erupted into controversy upon its hitting the Internet.

Nagin said that a Washington Post story that appeared Saturday under the headline “Nagin Suspects a Plot to Keep Blacks Away” unfairly took his comments out of context.

“I’ve been in enough hot water for things I have said,” Nagin said. “And this is what makes me mad. Because I didn’t say it, and now I’m almost in hot water, so this is just not right.”

The Post article, which recounted Nagin’s speech Thursday to the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an industry group of papers that target African-American readers, said that Nagin “has suggested that the slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans” is “part of a plan to change the racial makeup and political leadership of his and other cities.”

That article supported the premise with a quote attributed to Nagin: “Ladies and gentlemen, what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere. They are studying this model of natural disasters, dispersing the community and changing the electoral process in that community.”
Full TP Story here.
Washington Post story here.