Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s conviction on corruption charges leaves little doubt the Katrina disaster would never have unfolded as fatally as it did had there not been Third World-style mismanagement in that city.  The mayor who was so critical of President Bush for not doing more to prevent the disaster and help New Orleans after the levees broke, even demonizing him as a heartless racist, was mismanaging funds and operations that could have reinforced the levees and saved lives. Instead of building up the levees, he was building up his own personal fortune.

This is from Investor’s Business Daily:

A federal jury on Wednesday found Nagin guilty of bribery, fraud and money-laundering during his two terms as mayor of New Orleans from 2002 to 2010. The Democrat spent lavishly on personal parties, private-jet rides and first-class airfare for a Nagin family shopping spree in Manhattan that totaled more than $500,000. …

Nagin led a chorus of Democrat boos over the Bush administration’s handling of the 2005 hurricane, which took more than 1,500 lives and left tens of thousands homeless. But his record of corruption lends credence to Republican arguments that local Democratic officials in Louisiana were to blame for the post-storm debacle.

Indeed, a confidential and independent report commissioned by the Defense Department found that “corruption and mismanagement within the New Orleans city government diverted money earmarked for improving flood protection.”

The leaked 2005 report, which was commissioned by the Office of Secretary of Defense as an “independent and critical review” of what went so wrong, details how taxpayer money earmarked for flood control was diverted “to other, more vote-getting, projects.”

On Nagin’s watch, public funding was spent on Mardi Gras parties, marinas and gambling operations instead of levee maintenance. Had it not been for the failure of the levees protecting New Orleans from flooding, Katrina wouldn’t have killed as many or caused the damage it did. The National Hurricane Center ruled in December 2005 that Katrina was a mere Category 3 when it slammed ashore the Gulf Coast.

“Past mayors and governors gambled that the long-expected Big Killer hurricane would never happen,” the report said. “That bet was lost with Hurricane Katrina.”

Dare we hope that voters will fully grasp the fact that the rule of Democrats caused the ruin of both New Orleans and Detroit? And then keep the Democratic Party out of power?

Nah. Won’t happen. People who vote Democratic obviously don’t recognize facts and don’t like to think.