Snowstorm Politics: White Governor, Black Mayor In Atlanta
01/31/2014
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From the NYT:

Mayor, in Storm’s Eye, Is Unapologetic 
By KIM SEVERSON 9:12 PM ET 
While Gov. Nathan Deal, left, has been contrite after Atlanta was gripped by an icy paralysis during a snowstorm this week, Mayor Kasim Reed, right, has rejected criticism.
ATLANTA — Anyone who has listened to Kasim Reed, the former entertainment lawyer who became Atlanta’s mayor in 2010, knows the man who calls himself a street fighter likes to be forceful when he makes a point. 
But for the past two days, as the national face of a city that was virtually incapacitated by two inches of snow and ice, Mr. Reed has come across more as peevish than powerful as he has done interview after interview, mostly rejecting criticism of the government’s role in Atlanta’s vast ice storm gridlock. 

“I don’t want to get into the blame game,” he snapped at local reporters Wednesday as children were still stranded in schools and images of thousands stranded on frozen interstates rolled in a seemingly endless media loop. 

The next day, he fired back at national journalists, suggesting that Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” be more accurate in the images of a crippled region he was presenting to viewers and sniping with Mika Brzezinski on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. ...

Gov. Nathan Deal, in an apologetic briefing for reporters on Thursday and in his own series of national interviews, was as soft and contrite as Mr. Reed was unyielding and combative.  

I haven't been following the Biggest Story Since the Fort Lee Lane Closure Crisis as carefully as I should, but let me see if I have this straight: the white politician is deftly putting on a self-effacing image and trying to keep his head down until this whole thing blows over, while the black politician is displaying the kind of inflated but fragile ego that's essential to When Keepin' It Real Goes Wrong.

 I never would have seen that coming.

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