Is there any sympathy left for the slow burning man-made disaster that is New Orleans? First Nagin gets reelected. Then the fraud. Now gangsters are taking over the city and they're calling in the National Guard.

It's a bad idea. If it's stress inducing for soldiers in Iraq to act as peacekeepers, imagine what it will be like for the Guard, in a non-natural disaster situation, trying to police a gang and gun-filled American city.

If, or rather when, something bad happens, like the inadvertent shooting of a teenager, Nagin can blame the outsiders, playing one side off against the other, as New Orleans continues to deteriorate into a mismanaged urban nightmare.