(NOLA Mayoral) Candidates spar with moderators (Chris Matthews)

[funkybutt]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/114784603060150.xml&coll=1

Pair end up debating moderators instead

In a nationally televised mayoral debate Tuesday, Mayor Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu ended up debating less with one another than with the two moderators, Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and WDSU's Norman Robinson, who grilled both candidates harshly on such subjects as whether New Orleans should be rebuilt at all.

-snip-

At one point Matthews sparred with Landrieu, for instance, on the question of whether the federal government bears responsibility for the failed levee system, which has been under the auspices of the Army Corps of Engineers for nearly 80 years.

"Nobody out there thinks the problems are with the levees," Matthews asserted, but rather with corrupt local officials.

[texasleo]

1. I caught part of it

Tweety needs to stop with his lame "Do you support the president?" questions.
Nobody likes him, Chris. Get used to it.

[Fenris]

2. Dear Chris Matthews

I am not a New Orleans resident - I represent the rest of the country you insist doesn't want New Orleans rebuilt - and I would like to tell you that the only person you speak for is yourself, which you should probably know by now since you do it every weeknight on your show (and Sundays, too). Perhaps if you didn't enjoy listening to the sound of your own pontifications you might have asked questions that were pertinent to the city's plight rather than what the rest of America thinks. If you want to talk about the rest of America, that's fine - but don't do it when you are supposed to be moderating a debate over the interests of New Orleans voters. You have an hour every evening devoted to your misguided perceptions of the United States - don't waste the people of New Orleans' time. After all, haven't they suffered enough?

[shance]

3. The levees were blown Chris, either literally or figuratively,

or both.

You know it, Louisianans and New Orleans live it and breath the mold filled air everyday now, and you are trying to deliberately lie and deflect the truth.

You are a liar and are complicit with this Administration Chris Matthews.

Might as well own your lies. Cause one day, they are going to own you.

[anotherdrew]

4. to bad the Army corp of engineers have admitted fault

but reporting on that would be too much to ask of course.

[RCinBrooklyn]

5. MEMO TO JERK: Those would be the levees that failed, Chris.

[CottonBear]

7. Federal levees that were designed, built & maintained by the ACE

failed.

Tweety wants to keep alive the misperception that NOLA was responsible for the lake or river levees. The federal government of the USA (US Army Corps of Engineers) has a responsibilty to design, build and maintain levees on our most important shiiping channel (MS river) and to protect one of our most important ports. Tweety never mentions that the ACE budget for the levees was slahed in half since 2001 and that one of the people responsible for the NOLA/MS river levees resigned in protest (in 2002 I think.)

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[CottonBear]

6. Nagin & Landrieu should have called BS on Tweety & the other guy.

That so called "debate" was simply a smear job on Nagin, NOLA residents & Democrats.
Nagin looked incredibly frustrated. Landrieu didn't look much happier.
Tweety was a jerk. I think that the candidates should have refused to go on TV with Tweety.

It was painful to watch. Tweety is a shameless, heartless, greedy GOP whore. :grr:

[funkybutt]

8. Unfortunately I didn't get to see it

I heard that they were going to play it again tonight but the debate that's on now is not the one discussed in this article. :(