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A new book about the Katrina catastrophe paints a portrait of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin as a clueless, collapsing coward who hid out after the hurricane in a high-rise hotel - and had to be rousted out of Air Force One's bathroom.

While Tulane University historian Douglas Brinkley is generous with his entertainingly unflattering descriptions, he reserves his greatest disdain for Nagin and largely praises Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who cooperated with the author.

Nagin brushed off the book, but told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that no "credible" historian would publish such "a political hit" just days before the Big Easy's May 20 mayoral runoff election. Several of the most damning anecdotes are sourced to an aide who is now running against Nagin.

In excerpts published yesterday in Vanity Fair, Brinkley describes Nagin as spending most of the week after the storm holed up on the 27th floor of the Hyatt Hotel, looking down on the misery of the Superdome.

With all power out, visitors had to climb the stairs if they wanted to talk with him. Brinkley also describes the mayor scurrying to the roof when a cop warned that rabble-rousers were leading a mob to the hotel from the Superdome.

The book contains at least two scenes in which Nagin is described as hiding in bathrooms. One came after his famously emotional call to a local radio station, when he gave voice to the city's rage by demanding federal officials "get off your asses."

Nagin broke down crying after the call and spent 20 minutes in the bathroom "rearranging knickknacks and toiletries," Brinkley recounts.

In another, Nagin boards Air Force One for a meeting with President Bush and Blanco and is offered a shower while waiting for Bush.

"Like a teenager, Nagin just wouldn't get out of the bathroom," Brinkley writes, saying the mayor wanted to shave his head for a photo op. Aides tried to hurry him, and finally a Secret Service agent kicked the door and ordered him out, Brinkley says.

Nagin also is attacked for leaving New Orleans for Dallas a week after the storm. New Orleans police even put up mocking signs at the department's makeshift headquarters.

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