"For Mr. Obama, solving such deep-seated problems requires at least some government intervention, even if it is in partnership with private companies and charities. And he has become increasingly exasperated by Republicans, now in full control of Congress, who generally see his efforts - the stimulus, the
health care law and the Iran deal - as worsening situations, not improving them. In Las Vegas on Monday, Mr. Obama talked about having “to deal with the crazies.”
"So he came to New Orleans to try once again to prove his critics wrong. Where a timid and delayed response by the Bush administration led to a widely acknowledged disaster, he argued that his own efforts had returned New Orleans not only to its pre-Katrina state but to an even better one.
"But not everyone in the audience, a hugely admiring crowd, was entirely convinced.
“'We’ve seen some progress,' said Gretchen Bradford, a community organizer. 'But just try driving around here. The streets are torn up, and there’s still a lot of blight.'
"Deon Haywood, a criminal justice advocate, leaned in and said: 'And it’s not just what you see on the streets. The criminal justice system is worse than it was before.'
"As if to demonstrate the imperfect recovery efforts here, a huge, brightly painted banner of a steamboat traveling through a gorgeous downtown New Orleans peeled itself from the community center’s wall and, amid a collective gasp, fell on the crowd just before the president spoke."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/politics/obama-in-new-orleans-praises-results-of-federal-intervention.html