Forty-eight hours or so before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, I wrote Thomas Lifson here at American Thinker and predicted, as it turned out, very accurately, the scenario that would unfold in New Orleans. That insight was based upon my having lived there briefly back in the 70's. Briefly, because of all the places we have lived in our lives, New Orleans was the one site my wife and I couldn't get out of soon enough. We had been totally naive when offered a corporate transfer there.

Expecting an Old South city, we quickly learned that we were in more like some New York City Borough/South. Crime, filth, rampant government/police corruption and a widespread, daily-encountered rudeness we'd never experienced anywhere else in the South, drove us quickly to a move to Pensacola at the first opportunity.

So what does this all have to do with now? I followed the Katrina event very closely, being one of the first to breach the dike of political correctness and criticize Mayor Ray Nagin for his incompetence, actually criminal negligence, in failing to lead his constituents in their time of greatest need. Ray Nagin demonstrated quite clearly during the Katrina event, that he was, in the business of governance, in way over his head when it came to cool-headed, effective leadership. Nagin was just one more sorry, useless product of affirmative action, having been promoted by his company, Cox Network, to the head of its operations in New Orleans, a largely black city where the slick, smooth-talking Nagin could be counted on to cultivate positive relationships in the majority black community while comforting the doubtful whites.

Hurricane Katrina exposed Ray Nagin for the empty suit he had long been; his most memorable actions during a time of unprecedented disaster for New Orleans blacks were  his never-explained refusal to use the infamous dozens of flooded buses to evacuate the needy; his all-too-obvious politically-motivated denunciation of President Bush and the supposed lack of federal assistance; and last, and easily most memorable, his description of the resurgent New Orleans as, "Chocolate City."

What a diddler. He horribly failed those he was sworn to serve while at the same time alienating those who had the power and the means to help those same people in such dire need. In declaring New Orleans to be a "Chocolate City," this moron alienated much of America, because his all too glib words were seen by most of white America as being a big, black, racist middle finger.

Fortunately this inept mayor, Ray Nagin, is now out of office and unable to inflict upon his constituents his monumental incompetence any longer. Unfortunately for America, his federal counterpart is very much in power for another two years and is inflicting the similar damage of his Nagin-like cluelessness and ineptitude on not just New Orleans, but America and the entire world.

The parallels between the two are glaring: fast-moving, glib talkers, pushed to political heights precisely for the reason that they don't look or sound like the majority of black people they supposedly represent. Acceptable to liberals, particularly those wealthy liberals who have the means to advance the political careers of media-pleasing blacks who advance the cause of socialism, these slick but inept black politicians serve a very useful purpose to the socialist, communist movement: useful tools, useful fools.

America now faces an economic and political storm far greater in its destructive power than Hurricane Katrina; and much to our disadvantage.

America, we have a Ray Nagin clone in the White House.