nagin for president...

new orleans mayor ray nagin gave a goosebump-inspiring radio interview on thursday night. the transcript can be found here. the interview was originally broadcast on new orleans local radio station WWL-AM.

friday afternoon i went over to andrew's place before the two of us embarked on yet another fantastic 12 hour andrew/emily day. when i got there, he played the audio from cnn.com of the nagin interview. we both sat there listening, riveted:

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

WWL: What can we do here?

NAGIN: Keep talking about it.

WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?

NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.

how can anyone not be moved by this? how can anyone not feel compelled to do everything he or she can to help those who have been affected by this storm? i know i do. i'm sitting in my apartment right now, with all of the comforts that i so often take for granted, wishing that i could be with my father and brother and sister, wishing i could help with the clean-up, wishing i could help with meals and water, wishing i could do something, anything.

nagin's words are so brutally honest, so sincerely distressed, so refreshingly candid. i'm so sick of seeing george bush in his khakis and button down shirts, looking clean and well-rested, talking about how much is being done and about how trent lott will have to rebuild his house in pascagoula. you know what? i don't give a damn about trent lott. trent lott isn't dying. trent lott isn't sick. trent lott still has money and a job to go to.

this isn't about politics right now. this isn't about putting on a happy face and looking optimistically toward the future. right now we have thousands of people who are newly homeless and unemployed, thousands of people in one of america's most important cultural and economic areas, thousands of people who, for all intents and purposes, have been abandoned and turned into statistics and media fodder. ugh. it grosses me out. these are real people with immediate problems, stashed in spaces with no water and without functional plumbing.

can you imagine? can you imagine how it would feel to have an infant who needs diapers and formula? can you imagine how it must be to not have access to medications that you need? can you imagine being cramped first in the superdome, and then the astrodome, with little if any ability to get a hold of friends and family, with only the clothes you're wearing and that you may have been able to bring with you, surrounded by fellow refugees, with no element of stability or solace?

i cannot. i absolutely cannot. try as i might, i cannot forget that here i am, in my apartment, only having to share space with my cat, dishes piled up in my sink only because i've been too distracted this week to actually get to cleaning them, not because i don't have the water to do so. i've showered every day and i haven't thought twice about it. i have my books, my movies, my music, my photographs, my letters and journals, my clothes, my silly tchotchkes. i have school. i know where my friends and family are. it's a gorgeous day outside.

but it offends me to my very guts that this country has dragged its feet in doing all that it can to help the good taxpaying people of louisiana and mississippi who have been left devastated by this storm.

i wonder if things would be different if this storm had destroyed an area that wasn't in the south and primarily black and primarily poor. because if things would be different, then it's a goddamn shame that is shared by and affects every single one of us in this country. every one of us.