Bloomberg holds fire over Nagin remark

NEW YORK — New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refuses to apologize for criticizing the sluggish rebuilding of Ground Zero, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn't hitting back.

Bloomberg said he was "scrupulously avoiding criticizing anybody" and focused on the efforts New Yorkers made to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina last year.

"We sent down police officers, firefighters, correction officers, equipment to New Orleans," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. "So I'll let Mayor Nagin worry about [rebuilding] New Orleans and I'll try to do everything I can to help the governor here."

In an interview to air tonight on CBS' "60 Minutes," the New Orleans mayor deflected criticism about delays in reconstruction in his 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.

While Nagin on Friday defended his comparison to Ground Zero, he acknowledged his comments could have been interpreted as insensitive.

"I'm a very direct person. You know that if you ask me a question, I'm going to answer it," Nagin said. "You may not like the words I use, but no one should misconstrue what I was trying to say."

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

"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," King added. "... 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."