Bob Cook

Ex-FEMA chief Mike Brown can safely book restaurant reservations in Louisiana, because he’s no longer the most hated man in the state. That title belongs to New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, widely viewed as a snake trying to take advantage of Hurricane Katrina to get a sweetheart stadium deal for his team in another city.

Benson saved the Saints from a possible move to Jacksonville, Fla., when he bought the team in 1985, but nobody remembers that. Not when the mayor of San Antonio, one of the “home” cities for the itinerant Saints, claims to be negotiating to bring the team there. Not when Benson’s lust for a new, taxpayer-developed stadium predates Katrina by at least four years. Not when Benson fires team vice president Arnold Fielkow, the strongest public advocate from the Saints for continuing to play in Louisiana.

Not when Benson claims he’ll never return to Baton Rouge, another Saints “home” city, because the rude treatment he received makes him believe his safety is at risk. (He later said he hadn't decided what he'll do yet.) And certainly not when Benson’s Kenny Rogers imitation in Baton Rouge was shoving a cameraman, not delivering a stirring version of “Lady.”

Speaking of Kenny Rogers, Benson is viewed by many inside and outside New Orleans for being the Coward of the County for not unequivocally committing to keeping the Saints in the city they’ve played in since 1967. Sure, Benson took out a full-page ad in the New Orleans Times-Picayune declaring his intention to stay, but he’s also put out statements saying nothing will be decided until after this season.

All of this makes Benson hard to defend. But a defense, he has.

Plenty of businesses are reassessing whether it’s wise to move back to New Orleans and other Katrina-ravaged areas, given the unprecedented level of destruction, the months — probably years — it will take for a full recovery, and the surveys showing it’s possible about 40 percent or so of the New Orleans-area population of 1.2 million might never return.

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Of course, the other businesses aren’t considered a major symbol for whether New Orleans will ever fully recover, nor were the other businesses in buildings that were a major symbol for the heavy physical and psychic damage the city and the Gulf Coast suffered during Katrina. Benson is facing pressures no other Katrina-affected business owner is facing, and he knows it.

“I understand that of all the businesses that may never return to New Orleans, the thought and discussion of the Saints not returning to New Orleans is a subject that will garner the most intense scrutiny of the public and media,” read a letter credited to Benson that ran as a full-page ad in the Oct. 26 New Orleans Times-Picayune. Benson adds later, “We did not fold, we did not suspend, we did not downsize, we have continued to operate and represent the city and fans of New Orleans.”