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Bloomberg bypasses Nagin quip

He stays mum on New Orleans mayor's barb about WTC site

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

August 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin may be slapping the Apple, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he's "scrupulously avoiding criticizing" Nagin's quip about the slow pace of work at Ground Zero.

In an interview that will air on Sunday's "60 Minutes," Nagin deflected criticism about delays in reconstruction in his own city by turning the conversation to the World Trade Center.

"You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," he said, according to CBS.

Asked during his weekly radio show if he had a response, Bloomberg replied, "I guess I don't know that I have one," adding, "I'll let Mayor Nagin worry about New Orleans, and I'll try to do everything I can to help the governor here in a very difficult, complex situation" at the World Trade Center.

When interviewer John Gambling tried to ask the question again, the mayor shot back, "Why do you bring that up again? Here I am ... scrupulously avoiding criticizing anybody, and you keep trying to force us back into that situation? Is that your job?"

Not every New York politician was in a turn-the-other-cheek mood. House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-Seaford) lit into Nagin, calling his comments "hurtful" just days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

"It was disgraceful and really sacrilegious and this guy is really out of line," King said. "No one in New York was at all critical of him or his city at the time of Katrina. ... You're talking about a guy who was missing in action when his city needed him, sitting at the top of a hotel when people were flooded."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who has clashed with Nagin over the rebuilding process, distanced herself from his comments Friday, thanking "all of America, and especially to the people of New York, for their outpouring of help."

In a statement, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) cautioned Nagin that "the upcoming anniversaries of both Katrina and 9/11 should serve as sobering reminders of the urgent need to get shovels in the ground, not play the blame game."

Staff writer Melanie Lefkowitz contributed to this story.