Political Bloviation

Video Shows Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit – Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – On the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s fateful landfall,
President Bush was confident. His homeland security chief appeared relaxed. And warnings of the coming destruction — breached or overrun levees, deaths at the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelming needs for post-storm rescues — were delivered in dramatic terms to all involved. All of it was captured on videotape.

The Associated Press obtained the confidential government video and made it public Wednesday, offering Americans their own inside glimpse into the government’s fateful final Katrina preparations after months of fingerpointing and political recriminations.

“My gut tells me … this is a bad one and a big one,” then-federal disaster chief Michael Brown told the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.

The president didn’t ask a single question during the briefing but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by AP — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Makes you wonder what kind of apocalyptic hell might have broken loose on the Gulf coast had Bush not been “fully prepared.” He then proceded to lie to the press and the public a few days later:

Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm — and Bush was worried too.

The White House, still attempting to spin this issue said:

“I hope people don’t draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing,” Bush spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. “He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times.”

If he was “completely engaged” then he’s incompetent. Then there is the small matter of appointing political hacks to important positions that require actual experience and judgement. We deserve better leadership.

Thanks to Americablog

Tags: Katrina, White House