Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Blakely in the NY Times

HOT DAMN, SOME FUR IS GONNA FLY OVER THIS ONE!



Blakely tells it like it is, even when it's things we'd rather not talk about.

New Orleans now is “a third-world country,” he said.

Hmmm. Maybe we should just erect a new sign:


UPDATE- This has really divided the New Orleans blogging community. Some are Extremely upset. Some think he hit the nail on the head. It's fascinating. I definitely side with the second group, but it's great watching the (productive) back and forth.

Blakely clarifies his comments.

UPDATE 2- Well, you knew this was coming.

UPDATE 3- The best roundup of buffoon-gate. The Tony Amato parallels are starting to scare me...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unlike many who sometimes seem to spend too much time looking for something to be offended about, I don't find anything wrong with what he said. Anyone who paid the least bit of attention to life in NOLA pre-K has to agree that there were plenty of opportunities to get frustrated with the "buffoons" you'd find yourself dealing with on a daily basis. The fact that so many are up in arms mainly because the guy who's pointing that out this time isn't "from here" merely reinforces Blakely's statements about NOLA's insularity and provicialism.

Anonymous said...

Yep. I think we New Orleanians are hyper sensitive to insult at this point. And with good reason. That said, I think the targets of Blakely's criticisms are targets most of us have. I'll take a competent egomaniac over the incompetent, corrupt buffoons we've had for so long any day

TravelingMermaid said...

He apologized. If he truly meant the buffoons were only city officials, et al why would he apologize? Why did he not just say "I was NOT referring to the citizens of N.O." ???
OK, I:ll give him a break....education doesn't always translate to common sense or civility or even plain old awareness.
Time will tell.

Clay said...

He apologized to give himself a chance at actually getting done.