EVER HEARD OF RUDY G?

A piece written by Eugene Robinson on today’s Washington Post.Com is titled “Where’s Bush? Not in New Orleans.” The op-ed piece starts out “New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been guilty of hyperbole in the past, with his exaggerated reports of mayhem and death in the days after Hurricane Katrina made its tragic landfall.”

“…has been guilty of hyperbole in the past … exaggerated reports of mayhem and death…”?

I realize this is an op-ed, but is Robinson out of his mind? Or is he succumbing to good old “It’s too close to Christmas for anyone to pay attention” journalism?

[An aside to my readers. Journalism’s dirty little secret #1: Newspaper writing during the Christmas season has a greater incidence of regurgitation of old stories, facts, figures, themes, etc., than any other time of year. This actually is a real fact that we know and you don’t. But now you do, courtesy of LRRP’s World.]

Exaggerated reports? Nagin sounded like Chicken Little … and showed just about as much leadership.

Using Ray Nagin as an example for anything other than a symbol of how NOT to administer a city when a crisis occurs is like using Hitler as a role model for race relations.

And Nagin had a guy named Rudy Giuliani to emulate on administering a city during a clusterfuck.

Please, Mr. Robinson (chuckle) spare us what George Bush didn’t do … what didn’t the mayor of the new Atlantis do?

And while you’re at, Robinson, take a look around the Gulf. There are better things that epitomize the lack of governmental assistance than the town of New Orleans and its ineffectual mayor.

Robinson is an associate editor for WAPO who writes about politics and culture; but like most “objective” journalists has trouble with facts getting in the way of opinion. I’m sure his “real” journalism reflects the same “objectivity.”

Typical WAPO.