Sunday is an unofficial American holiday, Superbowl Sunday. This year's game is at the Superdome in New Orleans, and I'm sure during the game there will be references to Hurricane Katrina. On CBS Evening New last night there was a story about how people are still waiting to rebuild their houses, and how they were ripped off by fraudulent contractors who made off with their FEMA money. Remember right after Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin? How he accused the Bush Administration of racism because of slow federal response to New Orlean's needs? Of course every word from Nagin's lips made banner headlines on T.V., radio and newspapers across the country. Where are the national networks now, now that Nagin has been indicted on more than 20 counts, accusing him of profitting directly from Katrina clean up efforts? "Nagin is accused of using the office of mayor to steer city projects to business associates who, in turn, allegedly paid kickbacks and bribes and flew him on lavish free trips to Hawaii, Jamaica, and Las Vegas. Nagin was charged with bribery, honest service wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and filing false tax returns. “The defendant C. Ray Nagin, knowingly devised a scheme and artifice to defraud the City of New Orleans and its citizens of his honest services through bribery and a kickback scheme, whereby Mayor Nagin used his public office and his official capacity to provide favorable treatment that benefitted the business and financial interests of individuals providing him with bribery/kickback payoffs in the form of checks, cash, granite inventory, wire transfers personal services and free travel,” the indictment said. Apparently when you are black and trying to discredit a Republican administration with claims of racism it is news worthy. But when you are black and are charged with several counts of profitting from the suffering of your own people, well, not a peep from the liberal national media. It's a disgrace. As a member of the media myself, I try to tell myself that CBS, NBC, CNN and ABC aren't really biased, it just seems that way. The resounding silence over Ray Nagin's indictment shows me that yes indeed they have an agenda.
