Ray, Louis, and What's-His-Name

Going to bed last night, after 24, I was surfing the radio dial for something of interest and stopped at a local, liberal-oriented talk radio program. The team doing the show was authentically dismayed at Mayor Ray Nagin for a number of things he said in his speech during Martin Luther King Day, yesterday, in New Orleans.

Here is a very good summary:

BREITBART.COM - New Orleans Mayor Says God Mad at U.S. by BRETT MARTEL, Associated Press Writer, NEW ORLEANS

Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that "God is mad at America" and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be a "chocolate" city again. Many of the city's black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina."It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans _ the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

What you cannot get from reading Nagin's words are the inflections and rhythms in his speech. He sounded like he was imitating the speaking style of Louis Farrakhan. What Mayor Nagin said added significantly to that impression. To make matters worse, Farrakhan has invoked everything to explain Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, from God's Wrath to George Bush planting charges under the levees in New Orleans, to say nothing about the extensive racial plots. Furthermore, the words and speech patterns of the mayor, suggested another who seems to think in somewhat similar terms: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

Ahmadinejad has been quoted by Daniel Pipes (op. cit.) as saying recently:

When addressing the United Nations in September, Mr. Ahmadinejad flummoxed his audience of world political leaders by concluding his address with a prayer for the Mahdi's appearance: "O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace."

On returning to Iran from New York, Mr. Ahmadinejad recalled the effect of his U.N. speech:

"[O]ne of our group told me that when I started to say "In the name of God the almighty and merciful," he saw a light around me, and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. … And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic."

President Bush, as well as others, receives endless criticism from the Left for his speaking of matters of faith. He is accused of being dumb, ignorant, and backward. According the Left, people of faith are all on the Right, and they are all defective, if not downright dangerous.

Far be it for me to pose as a defender of faith. Nevertheless, here are men of the Left, invoking everything from divining to racial pandering.

Despite how much some people in New Orleans allegedly adore Mayor Nagin, he is a most unimpressive political figure. He and the governor of Louisiana, Blanco, made and make a matched set.

Demogoguery by no means belongs solely to the Right.