Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The Odd and the Unacceptable

I'd watch that soap opera.

It's odd that Douglas O'Dell singled out for praise a Nagin official who doesn't seem to have been in the local news before.
And he singled out for more praise Bill Chrisman, the city's new capital projects director, and Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, who oversees capital projects as the city's deputy chief administrative officer. "She has her finger on the pulse," he said.

I'm sure that Sylvain-Lear does have her finger on the pulse, as she has steadily risen up the ladder under both Marc Morial and Ray Nagin, but I've never heard of Bill Chrisman before. I couldn't find any mention of him search the archives of Gambit Weekly, City Business or The Times Picayune. That's also two well-paid executives who seem to have the same job. There's also a project development planner on Blakely's staff. When Blakely's position became administrative as well as advisory, I hoped that it would lead to some questioning of the number of highly-paid positions in the mayor's office. Obviously, that it didn't happen. It guess it's batter to have three people doing the same work, than to re-open a park.

It's unacceptable that some statements can go virtually unchallenged:
What I'm trying to do is plainly tell the federal view, the universal federal view . . . that the federal government has created $126 billion worth of response to this tragedy.

It's more of a half-truth than an actual lie, but it gives the impression that the city was given $126B that it's just pissed away. That's pretty f***ing dishonest on O'Dell's part. It's not nit-picking to say that since James Gill quoted O'Dell, he should have pointed out that O'Dell's statement was intentionally misleading. Otherwise, it was a good column. Check back tomorrow night if you don't understand just how dishonest O'Dell's statement was; I'll provide an explanation with a few links.

I've seen a fair amount of tea leaf reading over the meaning of O'Dell's statements, but I don't think anybody's mentioned the fact that O'Dell is a retired Marine Corps general, and Blakely is a condescending civilian with an ego so large that he makes Rob Couhig seem modest. It's worth considering.

Comments:
where are you??
 
I was in Tennessee, got back Friday night, but didn't have internet.
 
Glad your back.
 
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