Allen: Katrina was ‘best thing to happen to New Orleans.’

Thinkprogress:

Writer Charlotte Allen responded to questions today about her Washington Post op-ed from last Sunday, which argued that women “are kind of dim.” In an online chat with readers, Allen restated a claim she’d made in 2005 that “Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans”:

I said Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because it finally opportunity to a huge number of New Orleans residents living in passive dependency on welfare to get out of New Orleans and change their lives for the better. Thousands of them did exactly that–which is why there hasn’t exactly been a huge flood of those former residents flocking back to live in passive dependency and do just that. New Orleans itself now has a chance to change into a more self-reliant city.